Sora's Tale of Moana
by Iscreamer1
Summary: Sora, Donald and Goofy venture off to the Pacific Islands in this hypothetical telling of the story of Moana in the Universe of Kingdom Hearts. Also features characters from Lilo and Stitch.
1. Lilo Tells it Like it Is

Lilo Pelekai had a rough day. The girls, Myrtle Edmunds, Elena, Teresa and Yuki had been rude and they had been rude to her for as long as she could remember. After explaining to her hula teacher, Moses Puloki, for the fourth time that Tuesday was sandwich day for Pudge the fish, she felt like history was repeating itself when she was met with the atrocious, galling remark, "You're crazy" from Myrtle herself.

It wasn't her fault that she had to be rambunctious and inquisitive. Perhaps she was born with it. Perhaps it had something to do with her parents' ultimate fate while coming home from an anniversary dinner, using her silliness as a smokescreen for her true emotions. After heavy rains caused her mother and father's Porsche to fly violently off the Kaumualii Highway, resulting in a serious impact to the ground below the lookout point of the Waimea Canyon, Lilo had randomly selected Pudge, being a rare species of fish, to be directly responsible for controlling the weather.

And yet, despite her previous tirades with Myrtle and her posse, Lilo was even more furious than before. She came back to her house by the beach with blue walls and a peach roof and slammed the door open. It created a disruption throughout the household for a second before the sound of the slam died away and she quietly closed the door behind her.

"Myrtle that stupidhead! She ought to be canned and flogged!"

Lilo's twenty-year-old sister Nani, who could easily pass for a young woman in her mid-thirties and perhaps Lilo's own mother, had to counter-attack the younger girl's offensive remarks with a calm lecture.

"Myrtle will soon get what is coming to her, but I suggest, Lilo, that until that time comes, you ought to keep a civil tongue in front of her. You should be thankful that we are not in Ancient Hawaii anymore. They would have handled things more barbarically."

"What if they didn't do things barbarically back then?"

Nani was stymied before she found the answer. The contradictions of historical accounts by others were making less sense to her.

"Well I know it did seem like a perfect time for myths and legends to exist."

Lilo tilted her head to the right by five degrees, flummoxed.

"Then how come they don't exist now?"

To Nani, the stuff of myths and legends were both historical and fictitious from a certain point of view. Her perspective was that of a historical one, the magic having died out after the Industrial Revolution came into play.

"Well, I guess you could say that when Hawaii was first industrialized, we didn't need demigods anymore."

The word "demigod" struck Lilo like lightning. She rushed over to her room in the top dome of the house via a futuristic elevator—made from alien technology.

About a year ago, she befriended one—an ocean blue furred experiment mistaken to be a dog of a rare species numbered 626. She named the creature Stitch and it wasn't long before the unruly alien became a civil member of the planet Earth, taming his monstrous past and accepting the offer of a peaceful future under the permission of the Grand Councilwoman, leader of the Galactic Federation and an honorary member of the Galactic Senate.

Also in Lilo's home were two other boarders, aliens to be exact—Jumba Jookiba, Stitch's creator and his assistant, the one eyed "Wendy" Pleakley. All three beings from separate planets became the additional members of Lilo's "ohana", the Hawaiian word for family. Rather than being biologically related, Hawaiians had a different sense to the true meaning of _ohana_ …nobody gets left behind or forgotten.

When Lilo came up to her room, comprising of an aquamarine-green bed that matched her night gown, eight Polaroid snapshots festooning the wide window, a hula dancer lamp on the bedside table, a bed for Stitch attached two feet above hers and a 1957 RCA record player for her Elvis LP's, she walked right over to the bookshelf and found the exact book on the bottom shelf in the middle. It was covered in a rich layer of earth brown and on the top of the front cover were five gold letters written in cursive.

"Moana".

Jumba, Pleakley and Stitch were already there, pre-occupied by their own personal interests. Jumba, the heavy-set scientist of a four-eyed Kweltikwan was looking through his own laptop for materials needed for future experiments, thinking that Lilo's room had more than what his own room could hold with the menagerie of ingredients, weapons, tools and machinery used to manufacture and fertilize his experiments and Stitch's "cousins". Pleakley, aiming to be a fashion designer, was looking through the book _Aloha Attire: Hawaiian Dress in the Twentieth Century_ by Linda Arthur, which Lilo often used for ideas and possible modifications for her hula costume. Stitch was simply rolling about on his bed like the dog he pretended to be. He was bored from being cooped up in the house, and he wanted to spend more time with Lilo, even though she wanted be by herself in case Stich tried to attack some innocent civilian for random purposes.

"Lilo, the next time you ever think about doing your homework," Pleakley observed in a friendly tone. "You should share it with us, it might improve my knowledge of Earth from before I even came here."

"And I suppose you wonder why I am doing so?" asked Lilo as she completely pulled the book out of the shelf with obvious tones in her voice. "It's always nice to get help from others."

"It's most intriguing when one shares his knowledge with a former evil genius," Jumbaa added with pride. "Like a story about what Earth was like before aliens came here."

"Story?!" Stitch exclaimed, snapping out of his boredom.

"It's a good one," Lilo announced. "Sora told me a story about Ancient Hawaii once, and I thought I'd share it with you for the first time."

"I hope it's not disturbing," Pleakley sucked in a large lump of air into his lungs, trying to regain composure. "After taking a full read of that horror-tale _Lord of the Flies_ , I couldn't sleep for weeks."

"Civilized schoolboys descending into savagery are a lot closer to the truth than you think, Pleakley," Lilo assured with a kind smile. "But this one's more…safe and adventurous."

"By safe and adventurous, what do you mean?" the one eyed extraterrestrial asked out of suspicion.

"Like a fairy tale, silly!" Lilo wanted to laugh, but she had to keep herself under control as the narrator of the story not conceived nor written by her, but a legend known to the few but faithful historians of Hawaii and her islands. It was no wonder why some who preferred to be traditionalists were familiar with the story of a Polynesian princess and her collaborator, a demi-god with the strength of a volcano.

"Now if you'll allow me to read peacefully, I shall begin."

Stitch nodded at Lilo's words. Jumbaa, expecting a proper opening, asked out of the blue.

"What is that phrase you Earth people use to start a story?"

Lilo opened up the book to the very first chapter and took control of the story word for word with a powerful voice that compared with the island deities.

"Well…Once upon a time…."


	2. In The Beginning

There was a time, so very long ago (about 1200 AD to be exact) when sailors travelled mainly on a large stretch of blue liquid, for as a wise woman once said that in the beginning, there was nothing but the ocean that seemed to cover half the world. It corresponded with the sky of blue, reflecting its colors into various shades based on the day and the night: turquoise, azure, cobalt, sapphire, cerulean, all of which represented the colors of the ocean among many others. It was accompanied by a breeze that swept above the surface at differing heights and pitfalls that came from downdrafts and gales. At this time in the year, you could never tell what happened next, whether it be a rainstorm or a tsunami. It was around this day and age that the Polynesians, descended from the speakers of the Austronesian languages, migrated from South China to the islands that formed a sub region in the Pacific Ocean known as Oceania. It was the start of a time of exploration. The Polynesians, using their own senses alone, had developed their own navigational system if they were to get to Micronesia, for the proceeding area of Melanesia had better islands that offered food and animals to last them for the next millennium.

It was also a time when ocean voyages were primitive necessities instead of pleasure cruises, but for some families, it was fun. Children would look at the aquatic life of fish with their hands perched against the edges of the rafts made from the bark of a Eucalyptus tree, in varying pieces held together by ropes. The ropes, made from abacá fiber, were also used to hold the open sails crafted with pandanus monocots, allowing the boats to sail wherever the wind would take them. The high sun did not mind a young girl wearing a crown of leaves, as she and her parents lowered their right arms into the water, feeling the blue liquid and burst a cooling temperature into their pores. All through the purple-reddish sunset they went and on into the night under a bright moon with it's glowing light. Early or late, they would gaze into the stars, counting constellations and knowing which way to turn by north, south, east or west. The red and yellow featherheaded chief, who had a black goatee and a necklace made of teeth with a stone of half blue and half white, held his left hand up, letting his fingers touch the stars, where by the next morning, the sign of a white seagull alerting his fellow passengers as to where their new home would be.

Motunui Island was located north of New Zealand, and had almost everything a tropical Southern Pacific island had to offer: white-sandy beaches, crystal clear waters, many trees of coconut palms, houses made of wood and straw, and high earth elevations of mountains that expanded towards the sky but could never touch the hemisphere…all of which would come later once they had settled in. The flora of the island seemed to offer the beauty of an island like no other, with pink _alpinia purpurata_ flowers, frangipanis, haleconias and palmgrass; perfect for ceremonies and flower crowns. The tide was low as the regatta of thirteen ships slowed to a stop, smoothly striking the sand that grounded the underbellies.

Now the chief was the first to step foot in the water that reached up to his ankles. The less and less he felt his feet leaving the moist liquid for dry land, followed by his family and the commoners who were the last to go. The brown-skinned Polynesians at the time being wore skirts made of long leaves to conceal their modesty while some like younger children went bare. As time progressed, they had found other materials such as seashells, grass, tree barks, feathers and notably, silk which would be used for _lavalava_ skirts. For reasons of tradition and style, necklaces, capes and helmets had also been introduced. They would use lime to bleach their hair in certain areas, while some made sure to keep their natural hair color intact.

The homes built by the new inhabitants were made from coconut fibers that formed a domed roof built on posts. Elevated above the ground at about five to eight feet, they were known as Samoan houses after neighboring island that had built them. Other buildings were made using _afa_ or _sennit_ rope to hold the posts into place, allowing the roof to be stern and tight, providing the habitants with a comfortable shelter against all weather that came at them. The floor of the houses were made from river stones to keep the temperature of the home at a balanced level. On hot, humid days they would cool the building, while cold days, it was the other way around, the retained heat from the sun keeping home warm and comfortable. Mats that would be piled up to the highest level of comfort were owned by the chief, signifying his wealth and the pillow used for the bed would be made of bamboo wood. It was commonly believed that sleeping on hard surfaces would give the Polynesian a hard, erect, strong stature of the body. The last house to be built was the _fale fono,_ known as the chief's meeting house, which was always supervised by a _tufuga_ , whose crew would take about a month to construct in order for the poles and beams to have the correct measurement and to prevent rain from leaking into the sugarcane leaves.

In a great period of time, the son became the father and it was his duty to search for other lands that were deemed inhabitable for future generations, worthy of telling stories of these explorations to their children and their descendants from time and time again. He was given the shawl by the father himself and someday he would obtain the headdress to complete his image as a wise leader of his own tribe. The son and his friends would battle their boats against the tallest waves that ever dared to capsize the boats, even smashing them to smithereens during a heavy storm and colder climates which seemed to come at an almost unexpected rate.

He returned just in time to witness the birth of a beautiful baby girl with jet black hair, skin that was as brown as her mother's complexion and eyes made to correspond with darker shade of brown. She was adorable for sure, but then there came the subject of bringing up a name…a name that would immortalize her for the story of a lifetime:

Moana.


	3. The Upbringing of Moana

When she was about four years old, Moana and her eight friends; four boys, four girls, all of them with black hair, eyes as brown as their skin, each wearing an individual piece of cloth on the lower half of their bodies; were invited to a one-woman drama narrated by her father's mother, Tala.

Tala did not look a day over seventy five, for she still had her black hair that began to lighten into the shades of white that came with her age. Sharing her granddaughter's pink frangipani worn on the right side of her head by her fornix, she wore the red and tan dress of landscape patterns and an orange armband on her right elbow to establish her station as a dowager chieftess. As the wife of the first chief who passed on six years ago, she had a great habit of telling stories to abide the ways of tradition and to ensure that all legends survived into an age of preservation. She told her stories through words and scrolls that she herself had illustrated. Even with the scrolls that told the story in an illustrated form, a picture was forming inside Moana's head as she sat in front of the other toddlers, her grandmother's voice building up a powerful story of origin, avarice and hope.

"In the beginning, there was only ocean…until the mother island emerged! Te Fiti! Her heart held the greatest power ever known—it could create life. And Te Fiti shared it with the world. But in time, some begin to seek Te Fiti's heart out of lust, jealousy and desire. They believed if they could possessed it, the great power of creation would be vast. And one day, the most daring of them all voyaged across the vast ocean to take it. He was a Demigod of wind and sea. He was a warrior. A trickster. A shapeshifter who could change from human to any kind of animal with the power of his magical fish hook. And his name was Maui. But without her heart, Te Fiti began to crumble into dust, giving birth to a terrible darkness. Maui tried to escape, but was confronted by another who sought the heart: Te Kā, a demon of lava and fire. Maui was struck from the sky, never to be seen again. And his magical fish hook and the heart of Te Fiti, were lost to the sea. Where even now, 1000 years later, Te Kā and the demons of the deep still hunt for the heart, hiding in the darkness that will continue to spread, chasing away our fish, draining the life from island after island until every one of us is the bowed by the bloodthirsty jaws of inescapable death! But one day, the heart will be found by someone who would journey beyond the reef, find Maui, deliver him across the great ocean to restore Te Fiti's heart and save us all."

Now holding a scroll of Te Kā in her right hand and giant crustacean on the left with its claws raised, pinching for a star that represented the heart, Tala finished the story by spilling her tea onto the scroll depicting mountains surrounded by a tan ocean. The liquid blackened the scroll and with two strong hands she ripped it away to reveal a face that frightened a girl on Moana's left and a boy fainted dead away on her right while she was the only one who clapped. The others were just frozen, unsure of what to make of this. Her face smiled with inspiration at the very end of the story and her head directed itself to see her father, Tui Waialiki, who wore red trousers, a necklace of shark's teeth and a headdress of red feathers with two additional teeth on either side giving the near appearance of devil horns.

"All right, _metua vahine_ , I think the children have had enough for today."

He said this as he clapped twice into the hut, his arms reaching out for his beloved baby girl.

" _Metua tane!_ "

Moana's arms hopped up, hoping to hold onto her father's face before Tui had picked her up and her bottom was now in the formed cradle of Tui's right arm.

"I should mention to all of you that no one goes outside the reef."

And his eyes shot a look of dismay at his mother, who crossed her arms, visually dissatisfied with her son's complacency.

"We are safe here," Tui expressed his love for Moana by rubbing his nose against hers. "There is no darkness or monsters…"

But he stopped just time to let his left knuckles collide with a pillar made of coconut bark, an 8-foot roll of a scroll revealing the drawing of a hideous beast with fourteen spikes on his back and ten sharp teeth in his open mouth. In fact, it seemed as though that method was the only way for Tala to store and preserve her scrolls by hanging them from the roof edges and rolling them up, if not to create a dramatic effect of fear to upstage her audience. The toddlers, overpowered by that fear, gave a chorus of screams and ran the same way they came out.

As the chief rushed out as well, hoping to pacify the children, Moana's eyes turned to the water glittering in the sun. Once her father had lowered her onto the floor, Tala followed after him out of a habitual need for assistance and this provided an opportunity for Moana to be alone with what she thought had in store for the many things she had yet to learn in life.

The sunlight shining through was calling her to the ocean, her feet carrying her body through the trees and bushes until she reached a clearing, revealing a beach that was peaceful and quiet with no one else around. The pink hibiscus embedded on the right side of her head shone in the sun as she stepped away from the leaves and felt the sand stemming into the pores of her bare feet. Waves crashing and the sounds of birds filled the air as she skipped merrily to that one body of large blue liquid that had never felt before. There was nothing out ahead of her but the ocean itself and perhaps even six smaller islands in the distance. What came first to Moana as a likely gift from the ocean was a tan lace murex shell with a pink interior and shades of it surrounded the exterior. So beautiful in the sparkling water of the sunlight, it shone in her eyes, somewhat preventing her from picking it up until the shine had faded. Then she proceeded to pick it up.

She giggled at the beauty of this strange object until there was a crow. A crow that signaled the approach of three black furred with red bellied members of the falconidae family swooping over a baby turtle from a chelonioidea clan. Somehow, he had wandered off from his mother and father and now felt like was trapped in a cage, fearful of the birds preparing to eat him. Moana seemed to know this from her grandmother's teachings and had to find a way of getting him back to his natural habitat.

Placing the lace murex ten feet away from where the water could take it away from her, Moana'a tiny right hand reached for a palm leaf and her trusting eyes to the baby turtle allowed her to view the human as an escort back to the sea, with the leaf being an equivalent of an ancient umbrella. Moana could have simply picked him up with her hands, but along with a fear of the birds attacking her, she perceived the turtle being too heavy for her to carry.

The alternative came when she began shouting "shoo!" to one of the three birds, waving her left foot at it's beak and using the leaf as a shield for herself, allowing the second bird to hold it's mouth onto the turtle's tail for three seconds until Moana flapped her arms in a horrific imitation of a bird in her own mind and went back to cup her hands into the sand, lifting the baby off the earth and carefully lowered him into the water.

Watching the baby turtle swim off, Moana seemed happy and satisfied with the job done. And then, the true valor of a senseless act came through into the endless drops of the ocean and it almost sounded like the gods, goddesses and sea creatures of the deep were chanting her name.

 _Moana…._

Moana heard it, mystified by the body of water forming a dry path for her, revealing a smaller version of the pink and tan shell she had recovered earlier. This one was a _busycon spiraltum_ , also known as a pear whelk. The water dissipated even further to reveal an even smaller shell; a _scaphella junonia_. The colors were similar but the shape presented a sign of inferiority. With now two shells in her hands, Moana went further at the dry path of sand opening up for her, having gone at least eighteen feet and as she progressed, the wall of water was about nine feet above her head, giving her a clear view of the underwater life. In it, she could see some families of fishes staring at her, others minding their own business and others running off in plain fear while assuming that this human girl had penetrated their habitat.

A large turtle who might have been an octogenarian drew her attention, with his son, the baby turtle following his father seven inches away from his tail. His right eye noticed Moana and he turned to wave thanks and goodbye from his left fin.

As the big and small turtles disappeared in the haze of blue, Moana's ears heard a flow of water rising upwards and what had come with its edge nine feet above her was an innocent spirit which took the form of a still wave. The wave almost appeared to be a human hand fused together, perhaps even a smile when Moana tiled her head three degrees to the right and he did the same. This spirit of the ocean, or goddess as some would view it as, was just about as innocent as the girl before it.

Setting the shells down, Moana's right hand reached for the tip of the wave, who seemed to be curious enough to get close to her. Sure enough, when her right index finger made contact with the tip, it leaked like blood pouring out of an easily pierceable body, dousing her eyes. Moana giggled and unintentionally let the water consume her hair, creating an internal tornado that fused every strand she had into a large cowlick, the carnation perched on the edge of it.

Then suddenly a bright green oval came through into the wall of water and Moana first saw it coming straight toward her. Her right hand reached into the wall and she removed it, entranced by its beauty.

The oval looked like a piece of jade and had been carved with a single spiral path in the center. Above the spiraling path were carefully round shaped bumps surrounded by squares, at least three of them, with some triangular bumps under the spiral and the other side was pretty much the same when she had inspected it.

"Moana!"

Another voice, a masculine one belonging to her father came into her ears along with his entire body. Moana quickly walked back to her father, still carrying the jade and she had made it just in time to get back on dry land. Tui picked her up and carried her over his right shoulder.

"Moana, what are you doing out here? You scared me half to death."

Moana's arms reached for the water that was far from her grasp.

"I wanna go back."

Tui held Moana to face her.

"I know, I know," her father reasoned. "But you must not go beyond the reef. It is very dangerous and frightening."

"Why is it dangerous?"

"Well, for one thing; there are sharks who like to eat people, barracudas who can rip off your limbs and octopuses that can squeeze you to death. Now what do you say me and you go back to the village?"

Moana could only take a final look at the water that she had interacted with, questing her ability still clutching the jade in her hands very tightly and not willing to let go until she was able to put it in a safe place back at home. The shell she had admired earlier was also fading from view. She would get it back the next day.

Tui and Moana were joined by the chieftess Sina, whose thin figure of brown skin and black hair were as beautiful as the flora of the island. She wore a tan dress covering a longer one with a light mauve on the right leg and magenta with floral patterns on the left leg. The rim of her top was blood red and she also wore pink carnation on the left side with a headband made of teeth. The sight of seeing the woman who gave birth to her was enough to make Moana happy enough to run into her arms and hug her.

"You will do wondrous things my little minnow."

Tui turned the two women back to the village.

"But first, you must learn where you are meant to be."

As five men raked the _fa'atoaga_ far before them, Moana, riding on Tui's back as he shouted while motioning his hands to "Make way Make way!" as he planned introduce her to a vast knowledge of the village she grew up in and first lesson was a dance. Her mind, targeting the ocean, toddled towards it. No one but an old woman in orange saw her leave, waving casually as she did before she saw her chieftess running up to grab her. The second dance lesson took place in front of the _fale fono_ , with Tui, Sina and three men with long hair and lower clothing of tan and black performing the Hula Kahiko and because she was so good at it, a trio of older men gave her three crowns of purple leis, red carnations and white Tahitian gardenias, which she would later grow into.

Next, Moana learned how to draw using paints made from amaumau and horu, her first drawing being that of a raft at sea. In spite of the approval and disapproval of her parents, they also thought her how to wave baskets from coconut palm tree leaves. She was introduced to a sextet of roosters led by Tui's loyal pet called Hei-Hei. With wide eyes, head of red, a neck of yellow to orange and a slender body of blue and green feathers, he was very cocky, aggressive, proud and judgmental, at the same time making him look stupid as Moana had observed his behavior getting him into tripping over a small, stone rock, beak-first. She followed the roosters on tip toe one time which lead her to the beach, igniting her excitement at wanting to see more of the ocean.

"I wanna see!" she told her father once he had reclaimed her from setting foot in the water.

"Do not walk away and stay on the ground where you belong."

And that was all the reprimanding she needed from Father for the day.

About a year later, it was during a not-so-mild hurricane which made the ocean angry for no reason other than a growing death count of fish, mostly performed by humans for the sake of food. Most of the villagers were cuddled up into blankets in the _maota tofa,_ safe and warm from the high winds that threatened to tear down the huts. Moana's brown eyes peered through the curtains forming as a wall, which were carefully tightened down to prevent the storm from ripping them off. Thinking she could convince the storm otherwise from laying waste to her village, she bravely set her right foot onto the dampened sand and forced her five-year-old body straight to the beach.

She shouted "STOP!" on a rock that almost seemed to be as high as her voice. The rock, located on the water seemed to be above the level it was currently at, but it rose when the sea did not heed her words and in a sense of blind rage, pushed her into the water. Moana could only gasp for breath, avoiding the oncoming surges of water that seemed to come into her mouth at all directions. Her feet were about an inch away from the sea floor and if she could not rise any further, she would drown immediately. Any chances of trying to turn back only hindered the progress of her trying to turn back to the sea.

Tui, who had been looking for Moana the moment he realized she was missing, only had one explanation. He had seen her falling from the rock and he rushed just in time to pull Moana out of the water before she could be swept off into the sea by another wave. He turned counterclockwise back to his wife and mother who were just about equally worried as they were.

"This is what happens when you let her think the ocean is something you can control!" Tui reprimanded the two women.

But his mother had other ideas.

"I'll go talk to her."

Using a blanket to dry her hair once they were back inside, Moana could only feel the disappointment of her grandmother's words and her inability to put the ocean under her command.

"That was dangerous, do you understand me?"

"Yes," Moana wept quietly.

Tala continued.

"The ocean is not your pet, nor is it your slave. It is a force of a nature that we must use in order to travel on our ships. There comes a time where it does not always want to play with you and when in a mood like this…it does not always follow orders."

Her heart melted at the sight of Moana's tears and the following hug did not stop for no more than three minutes. In addition, there were two things Moana learned that day: her grandmother was not the kind of woman to be too angry at her and that she had to be gentle with the ocean. In the end, her grandmother quelled her fears by telling her she had brave eyes and that it would be her duty in life to become a brave warrior just like Maui.

It around the time she was six when her father first told her more about the reason as to why he did not let anyone go beyond the reef in search of other lands. The entire conversation took place on a raft while the two were fishing. Moana was lying on her abdomen, looking down at the water, while her father brimmed the sail and checked the baskets for fish. When he saw Moana's right hand smoothing the water, he asked.

"Moana, what exactly are you doing?"

The girl looked over her right shoulder at her father.

"Petting the ocean. Grandmother Tala says I have to be gentle."

Tui took three steps closer to his daughter and said.

"Well, why don't you come over here and be useful? I could use some help with the sail."

Moana perched her feet on the starboard side where her father was and pushed her hands against the bottom pole.

"Just lean back help tip the sail," her father instructed. "Move too much and the boat will stall."

And so she held on, careful not to let go. Eventually, the boat moved at a leisurely pace and that was the exact moment Moana rested her arms against the bottom pole and asked.

" _Metua tane?_ How come we can never go past the reef?"

"The reef acts as a barrier that keeps us safe. As you may have known, _kaikamāhine_ , there are no other lands and if there are, the people who live there have similar reasons."

"But Grandmother Tala says we did not used to just sit here and let the island provide the life we needed. We explored other parts of the world during the great migration to discover _thousands_ of islands. And that is what I want to do, become a navigator like Maui."

"We have not voyaged in a thousand years for a reason. Past the reef is the edge of nowhere and after that there is nothing."

Moana felt that falling off the edge of the earth sounded completely unimaginable.

"You mean only the ocean? Nothing else…?"

"Not even clouds or stars or even fish. Everything that was there is long gone from here. A powerful land spirit named Te Po consumed every last bit of it."

And that is just what her mind was, nothing. In addition, her face was flat with dread at experiencing an endless void herself. But Moana continued with another question.

"What about Te Fiti?"

"Te Po consumed it too."

She sulked over that fact for the entire day. No matter how scintillating her father sounded to be, it seemed he did not know everything.

Moana first learned about the coconut when she was seven and how rich and deliciously sweet the water inside it was, something that further piqued her interest in the ocean. These green coconuts, used to make fiber for their nets, had leaves that were capable of building fires (as Hei-Hei had experienced for himself when attempting to feel the warmth of the flames before Moana saved him from being scorched). To pick the coconuts off the trees, some had to shake them and some would just climb up and pick the coconuts off their roots and throw them in the baskets which could fill up to about five coconuts at a time. Others would use axes to chop them off their roots, while those below with the baskets caught them.

For her birthday, she received a dwarf pig with fur as white as a lamb and some black splotches on his right ear and withers. She named the shoat Pua for it seemed to be as adorable as his pink nose along with the lighter pink pigments of his ears. He had more energy than any other farrow on the island and loved to accompany Moana wherever she went, even on days where she would paddle her 9-foot tall canoe behind the rock where her parents, seeing her from the distance, ran over to the rock and it was her father who scooped her up and hung his daughter over his left shoulder to take her back to where she truly belonged. Moana was just about as dismayed as Pua, whom they left behind in the canoe with an oar in his mouth. They eventually sent a trio of men to get him out and return the canoe to the beach.

Returning home, Tui and Sina had Moana try on a new crown of red feathers, a clam on the headband and three heliotrope pearls festooning the front, along with four white leaf designs and seven rubies under the large pearl. A crowd of one hundred came to see how she looked in the headdress that suited her white top drawn with three foam flowers, a necklace of shells with a fish hook and a skirt of red. They stood between the _maota tofa_ and the _fale fono_ , which had a path long enough for all three to walk down in the equivalent of an ancient parade with no other performers.

To her right, Moana could see her grandmother about a half mile away on the rock where she left Pua and her canoe, rising her hands upwards. Curious, she rushed off before Tui and Sina, also donned in formal headdresses, had noticed that there was a longer gap between themselves. Arriving by the tall tree, Moana watched her grandmother turn clockwise, sensing she was there and smile at her presence.

"I like to dance with the water," Tala explained before her granddaughter could even ask. "It can be wise and mischievous at times, but it understands where you truly belong."

But at the same time, the other natives began to disregard the old chieftess' former reputation to that of an insane woman who apparently had lost her mind at the moment she was widowed.

When she had grown into a beautiful maiden of sixteen years, Moana had fully mastered her grandmother's hula dancing, knowing every step that corresponded with a human's interpretation of the flowing water: right arm forward, hand out, one step back, arm in, put your right foot in, reach out and grab it with your right hand in the air, turn counterclockwise and wave your hands as they match the soft waves of the ocean. Among other movements, they were just about as traditional as Tala had wanted it to be.

But she still had her obligations to keep up with and she would help her people and her parents with collecting coconuts and later that night, donning a crown of pink carnation flowers, she danced with seven other women who wore pumpkin orange skirts and white straps around the arm and shoulder joints wrapped around the neck. She was confident that she could lead her people through hard times, peaceful times….all in the same place where they belonged…forever and ever.

On the fifth day of July, it was cold and wet. The small drops of rain had turned into a quick hurricane that nearly ripped off roofs, nearly even blowing the chicken coop away. Pua offered to help with the pots and pans to prevent the drops from staining the floor as Tui and Sina, flanked by an architect (or _tufuga_ ) wearing a tan skirt and two rows of white beads for a necklace inspected the patches on the roof in the _maota tofa_.

"Every time a storm comes, the roof leaks no matter how much effort we put into it."

Moana, who been checking the fronts from the thirty-foot-tall post while wearing a crown of hinano flowers to establish her presence in front of "commoners", came down to present the architect with her discovery.

"Not to worry, _tufuga,_ the wind simply shifted the post a little to the north."

Surprisingly, the architect had also brought with him a grey-silver bowl filled right to the top with the cooked remains of a sow as an emergency practice in case his superiors went hungry. Moana's right hand had one second to take the biggest piece she could find from the top and shove it into her mouth as the man along with her parents gave a second glance at the roof. Her eyes closed for two seconds, and her face felt compromised and enjoyable, feeling the warmth of the meat drive away the cold that began to take her into a world of satisfactory paradise where food was endless. She could feel it running down her throat along with the meat going directly into her stomach where closed her eyes again at the heat filling the entirety of her body.

"Mm! This pork is so delicious!"

But then her eyes opened at the sound of a squeal, turning to see the recoiling face of Pua. The pig was looking at her as if she were a cannibal. Truth be told, the piece she had eaten was the brain of his mother rolled into a meatball, who lived long enough to feed her babies, but by the time Moana had turned sixteen, she had to be executed.

"I'm sorry, Pua, but…."

The idea of telling him that his mother had died in order to become food seemed to be a difficult subject for Moana, thinking that Pua was still a child even if she knew he was a dwarf pig, but she took this knowledge into a simple point of view. Pushing that thought aside, she hurried over to the hut of the tattoo artist, or pe'a.

The pe'a, who held his hair in a ponytail and wore a dark skirt, was just about working his artistic craftsmanship on the back of a burly, yet clean shaven and young man named Ikaika which meant "strong", drawing shapes of diamonds and triangular ones to depict the ocean and it's fauna, using a black inked tooth from a bone handle in his right hand and a wooden bar in his left. He was drawing in the finishing touches on the fourth fish swimming down Ikaika's spine at the time Moana came to console him with Pua in tow. With both of her hands holding his large left one, she knew that such processes would be a painful experience. Ikaika cried out at least eight times when Moana's right hand petted the hand she was holding.

"You are going to be fine, Ikaika. Your strength will overcome any injury."

"Thank you," he tried not to scream. "But is it done yet? I have been here almost an hour, maybe even two!"

Moana checked Ikaika's back. The dark-inked tooth was poking his skin four times harder until it drew blood, but nevertheless, the job was done. Pua, who seemed a bit sensitive to the red substance, inched away from getting infected. With her observation at a finish, Moana and Pua left the hut as the pe'a wiped away the blood with a _solo_ , a tapa cloth used to clean injuries.

Next, at precisely 12:00 PM, she thought a hula dance to her class, consisting of a twelve-year-old boy and his equally pre-teen sisters—and then there was that one other eight year old boy in curly black hair, brown eyes, a white shell necklace, an armband of thin tan string on his upper left arm and a clear white garment depicting life under the sea whose dances seemed pretty unorthodox. He walked backwards into his peers, placed his hands in, then out, ran his left hand through his hair, lifted his right foot, threw his left foot and finally bounced his shoulders up and down while the traditional sort continued without further delay. Moana was not entirely sure where had gotten such movements from, but it seemed like an omen that something new and exciting was about to enter her world of stature and institution.

Up next around 12:56 was a meeting with the _kuke_ , or cook at his imu, an underground oven. He had already cooked up a lunch of four cabbages placed against the rocks when an insipid Hei-Hei began to inspect the heat of imu to make sure it was hot enough to cook the cabbages. Luckily, his wide eyes noticed Moana and Pua and stepped backwards, letting the more superior of species handle the situation properly. The _kuke_ , an old man with a necklace of a carved white shell placed his pincers down and spoke to his chieftess-to-be.

"I am curious about the chief's pet rooster's inspections of my imu. He doesn't know that it's dangerous to set at least one foot on the rocks. He could end up as my dinner if he continues like this."

Moana was more sympathetic to her father's loyal pet, no matter how self-assured he seemed to be.

"Sometimes our strengths lie underneath the surface. Hei-Hei may be a bit…arrogant and simple minded at times, but maybe there is more to him than what we see with our eyes."

Confident that Moana had everything under control, Hei-Hei left to rejoin his squad in the coop.

At 1:28, she had just helped a woman with a crown of leaves and a dress of red with a basket of coconuts. Her parents watched over her, firm in their belief that she could surpass this simple act of kindness. The woman, whose name was Elikapeka, had nothing more than a tale of grim news.

"This morning, I was husking the coconuts…"

She held one up in both hands.

"And then I find this…"

With all her strength, she had split it into two sections and what would have contained a fresh, clean source of milk or water was replaced by a degraded surface of white and black cracks which would have suffered a first degree burn. The cracks looked parched and dry as it had proved to Tui upon seeing it, that there was no way he could able to consume it. It seemed to the chief that the coconut had been suffering from an equivalent of malnutrition. Two other women, one with also a crown of leaves and the other with her hair wrapped in a bun, also produced similar results: opened coconuts with shades of black and cracked embers all over the previously completely white clean interior.

Sina could only express confusion into this natural intruder of their idyllic lifestyle and Moana could only hold back certain feelings of dread and her optimism seemed to be taking a nosedive at the poor sight of the sullied coconut.

"Well…" her voice was turning stronger at her decision. "I think we should clear the diseased trees."

Another thought came into her head.

"And we will start a new grove…"

She pointed her right index finger to a sunny area of four trees in the foreground.

"Over there."

"That sounds very much like a good idea to me, Moana."

This seemed to have lifted Elikapeka's spirits as she and her lady friends took their baskets to find a way of disposing the ill coconuts. She stopped to her chief and chieftess and said.

"Your daughter has commanded a most excellent act of charity. I hope she will be just as wise as you when she is older."

And she left without another word from her or her friends. Her parents smiled at their daughter, happy with the fulfillment of her duties for the day.

"You have done a most suitable performance," Tui smiled.

Last but not least, were the boats on the beach to oversee the fishing results of the day. One man with his hair in a ponytail had noticed a slight detriment to the funnel shaped traps which had a hole in the end of the square belly close to the bottom. He opened up the bottom to prove his point to the chief and his daughter as he explained.

"Our traps in the eastern lagoon were pulling out less and less fish."

Moana inspected the cover tediously.

"Then we shall rotate the fishing grounds."

"We have already tried that and if there is no fish; there is no fish at all."

"Well then…"

The idea immediately came into her head.

"Then we shall fish the far side of the island."

The man was pessimistic with his results.

"We have tried that as well."

"The leeward side?"

"That too. The shallows and the channel are deprived of fish as well."

As the man consoled with the chief, Moana could see nine men and women hovering over their boats with traps at the ready, but their faces told a tale of woe. She concluded that the diseased coconuts were not the only problems her people had to face and that their resources were being used up. Her right foot was paced on the stern of the fisherman's boat and she stood up onto the body of the boat to take a closer view of the ocean. Life out there had a lot more to offer than anything on Motunui.

"What if we fish beyond the reef?"

Her voice was loud and dominant, turning clockwise to face her father as she held an oar in her strong arms, but what she got in return was a searing stare from Tui. His answer was plain and simple.

"No one goes beyond the reef."

Moana had to convince her hard-hearted father.

"I know, but if there are no fish in the lagoon and there is a whole ocean out there just waiting—"

Before she could say "to be discovered", Tui interrupted her.

"We have one rule and that is not going beyond reef."

His daughter turned clockwise again to face him, her expression serious.

"Are you willing to remain bound to this old single rule when there are fish all the way out there?"

"It is a rule that keeps us _safe!_ "

By now, Tui had his hands to the level of his mouth in desperation.

"Instead of endangering our people, we should solve our problems here and not go anywhere into the ocean!"

"Then is it true, you are blinded by complacency?"

The three men standing behind their faithful chief seemed to gasp at such a notion. But Tui seemed undeterred.

"Complacency or not, we cannot risk our lives going out to a sea of forbidden territory."

Then, she asked a question she had never said before since ten years ago.

"What if there are other tribes?"

"If there are, they too have stayed put for their own reasons."

"So they could starve to death?"

Moana placed his hands on her hips and her voice sounded angry and strictly upset. Were all the chiefs in the world as stubborn as her father? Tui was not sure how to mention it, but the thought of his people facing a famine had never occurred to him before. But in the moment that she gave her father a silent apology, she released her hands, dropping the oar, slowly walked off the raft and stormed away to the _maota tofa_. There, she left her crown of flowers and after at least thirty minutes of rolling around on the floor and gazing up at the dark ceiling she went outside to clear her thoughts, fooling around with a 20 inch stick of maple wood by just juggling it back and forth in complete boredom.

Moana was almost certain that she had nine older brothers who sailed beyond the reef, but this was a myth invented by herself when thoughts of denial that no one had explored beyond reef contradicted her, creating her fictitious siblings to put her mind at ease that others were sailing away from the island to find other lands, no matter how many times her father and mother corrected her. Her grandmother also believed her in order to keep the spirit of exploration alive in her mind.

Her mother, who had just learned about Moana's idea from Tui, had found her at last after about four minutes of searching. The words came out of her mouth almost unexpectedly.

"Well, your father does have a point about his ways, but confronting him while standing up on a boat was worth a try at seeing the error of his ways."

Moana's eyes avoided her, she was still frustrated by her father's stubbornness.

"I did not say that I wanted go beyond the reef because I want to be on the ocean, _metua vahine_ , I just wanted to know if there were other islands out there like ours."

Sina, remembering her mother-in-law's tales of explorers, sympathized with her daughter.

"And you still do, _kaikamāhine_ , but he was very much like you once."

Moana could not believe her mother's ears. Her face fell flat as a mental image of a younger, less mature embodiment of her father filled her eyes. At last, she turned her head right to face her mother sitting down beside her.

"Like me?"

"Yes, he and your grandfather were drawn to the ocean. They wanted to explore every drop of it and challenge the shores like the true men they were. They took a canoe, crossed the reef and found an unforgiving sea with waves like mountains. The boat came back to shore the next morning with only one person…your father. He couldn't save him. He's hoping he can save you."

Moana's imagination took her to the events as mentioned by her mother took ahold of her previous views of her father. What she could see next was sadness and tragedy in the death of a family who was so wise and trusting…almost as much as her grandmother.

"And the ocean did not listen to him?"

"The ocean only listens to one who is worthy and unfortunately for your father…he was not."

And it was then that Moana began to understand why her father was so strict on his single rule.

"Sometimes, who we wish we were and what we wish we can be is not meant to be."

She lovingly pushed back a handful of Moana's hair behind her left ear with her right hand and placed it against her cheek.

"Perhaps that time will come, if there is a sign to prove it."

And it was there that Sina left Moana for some long overdue mourning.

All the rest of that day, Moana had been wandering around the island, overviewing the life and surroundings of the place she called home with Pua following her in curiosity. Left and right, up and down, north and south, east and west, everything looked the same. For as long as she could remember, she had been standing on the edge of the water, wishing she could be the perfect chieftess with reasonable rules of exploring other islands just like Maui, but now in her current state, all roads lead to home (Or at least that was how she saw it on her island and all that.). Everyone on her island was very happy and complacent with the way things were…but was there really more to this world, than what everyone else saw, to be uncovered by and by?

By 5:40, Moana felt torn between wanting to see what the ocean had to offer and remaining to stay in the place of heritage where she could rule Motunui in countless centuries of peace without a single war to disturb it. With Pua close by the boat, her heart was telling her to go to the distance, but her mind told her to stay and it took her body up to the tallest mountain on Motunui where the great chiefs of the past recorded their reign, dynasty and existence in the form of a stone.

There were 36 stones piled up, one for each chief who ruled the island for over 25 years over the past millennium. The stone that her father had selected for her, lying five feet from the pile was already in her hands, just waiting to be added. But the urge of her own heart screaming at her brain to take a different path, controlled her body to turn left in a counterclockwise direction. Then squeezing her eyes shut, Moana clutched the stone to her breasts and wondered with all the confusion building up inside of her.

"What is wrong with me?"

The whistling of the wind followed, coupled by what sounded like a strange whining nose and the burning of a fire that crackled in the air. This seemed to have caught Moana's attention, for when she opened her eyes, a pillar of black smoke was falling all the way towards the horizon. Perhaps it could have been a meteor, but it was not the same size that took out all the dinosaurs, it was something smaller, burning it's way through the atmosphere until it passed into the sun and touched the water without even so much as causing a gigantic tidal wave.

"Could it be a sign?"

Moana had to find out for herself. Her thoughts of the stone went quickly away as she left it right by the base of the column and rushed down the mountain, curious to find out. Determined and with her inquisitiveness growing at an alarming rate, her right hand grabbed a palm leaf and she took the end in her right hand, holding it a foot high above her head and using it as an air glider on the elongated bark of a palm tree. The rush of this precursor to something that seemed similar to a zip line only fueled her desire to find what was really out there. She passed the headdress still standing on it's mount in the _maota tofa_ , ignoring her destiny to choose the path of her heart.

Passing the green grass and colored flowers, Moana's feet felt the hardness of stone as she found herself on the black rocky ground of four geysers, each one blowing off hot, steamed water as she ran quickly over the holes, some of the drops even staining her hair, exposed back and dress. Sure enough as she reached the beach, there was Pua in the boat with a 7 foot oar in his mouth, holding it with the blade on his left side. He waited anxiously for his mistress until the moment she came to him and petted his cute little head with her left hand and took the oar in her right, pushing the boat off the beach and onto the aquamarine colored water.

And with the oar in both hands, she directed her boat towards the smoke.


	4. Strangers From a Distant Future

On their way home from Zootopia via Gummi Ship, Sora could have sworn that he had seen his home island, Destiny Islands, far below him out of the lower left corner of his right eye. Without any second guessing, his turn at piloting the rocket had gotten the best of him when he turned the yoke hard over to port and the strong gravity coupled with the descending speed of the ship caused it to go haywire. In a counterclockwise direction, the Gummi ship began to spin, slow at first, then faster. Goofy Goof felt like upchucking on the dome window that shielded the cockpit from outside forces, but his throat was able to hold it back in until they had passed into the stratosphere. There he could try to open the dome without being sucked away and let his regurgitation go into the air where it would fall into the royal blue mass below.

The blue mass, which Sora already knew was an ocean, looked light at first through the clouds as they passed, growing closer and closer. Donald Duck prepared to hold his breath in this one final act against the inevitable. Holding back the contents in his throat, Goofy's right hand reached for the keyboard on the control panel and his fingers tapped away to send out an SOS message:

"HELP. . .WE ARE BECOMING UNDONE. . ."

The nose of the Gummi Ship made contact with the water, the interior creating a jolt that vibrated, pushing Sora from his seat to the cockpit dome, where the back of his crown made contact with the glass followed by his neck, his torso, then his legs. Donald, spinning violently, found his beak pressed flat against the glass, his eyes looking up at the sky of scattered clouds turning pink. Goofy, his eyes widened from the left side of his face and both hands being pressed against the glass, could see an island in the distance and was convinced that the natives who lived there would be able to help them…but this may have been just his limited intelligence informing him on the most immediate account that their expected help was not a threat to be dealt with.

Truth be told, as Sora tried to get himself down, he and Donald fell smack dab on their noses onto the floor once the gravity of the cockpit had settled in and the slow rocking motion that rolled Sora onto his feet told the man that they had landed in the water. But when he cupped his eyes into the shape of binoculars, all he could see was an island that was too tall and too large to be the one he had lived on for the early years of his life. All he could say was.

"This isn't my home."

He had to admit his carelessness privately, for he still wanted Donald and Goofy to believe he was officially mature enough to know his surroundings, the same went for his mother and friends.

"Well, you're the one who wanted to pilot the ship!" Donald shouted, getting up to his feet.

"Yeah, just because you were kind enough to let me!" Sora stomped his way over to him, taking three steps of angry fists.

"That was then, this is now!"

"Well, right now, I say we swim to island, see if it is inhabited and ask them where we are! Let alone _ask_ them for help!"

"No, what if they're bad?!"

"You don't know that unless we know them first!"

"Gawrsh, and I thought I was clumsy," Goofy said to himself, and as Sora and Donald began to shout pungent explanations of idiocrasy at each other, he soon spotted two figures on a raft heading toward them: one looked like a white furry piglet standing precariously on the bow and the other was a black haired, chocolate-brown skinned woman who wore a blue abalone shell necklace, a bright red top and a hay skirt with a red sash wrapped against the top. He was convinced that help was on the way and he was so excited he immediately shouted to Sora and Donald.

"GUYS! GUYS! SOMEBODY'S A COMIN' OUR WAY!"

The human and the duck turned their faces at the dog, then to the woman with wavy black hair and thick eyebrows coming their way and rushed in opposite directions to open the hatch. The hatch jerked and slowly went up until the bottom was facing the sky at a fifty-degree angle. Sora's left foot left the cockpit and once he got his right foot out his left hand formed a knife position and placed it directly above his eyes for a better view of their rescuer.

She had the face of a brave lion hidden under that female exterior which turned into a mug of confusion when she how strange and foreign the Gummi ship looked. It had no sail and the blocky shapes festooning it, not including the sharp bowsprit, made it clear that it was made of something other than wood. She took one look at its captain with brown spiky hair and _extremely_ pale skin, with eyes that were as blue as the water, clothes that were mainly as green as the plant leaves with some red and gold details including his shoes and a crown shaped pendant that was made from some mineral that wasn't a seashell or a tooth. He was aided by a duck in a sailor suit and some sort of dog-like creature who appeared to have the intelligence of her people, _human_ intelligence.

Ignoring the odd creatures, Moana turned to the young captain and asked " _Who are you?_ " in her native Tahitian.

Sora might not have understood her the first time, anyway he replied.

"I'm Sora, he's Donald and that's Goofy."

Then noticing how…tribal she looked, Sora added.

"We're from the future."

Moana, puzzled and confounded, cocked her head five inches to the left. Her eyes were focusing on the outfit as the realization came quickly into her head.

"Well, that would explain the odd clothing."

Sora then offered his right hand to her, intent on joining her in the raft since the Gummi Ship's fuel tank had been ruptured from the force of the impact. If the engines were to be ignited, the rocket would likely explode and Donald was not willing to take that chance.

"May we join you on your ship?" he asked slowly.

Moana looked at the offering right hand and seemed a bit hesitant before understanding that the stranger was friendly.

"You may," she replied in a formal tone. "But no funny business."

Sora, slowly and tediously to prevent himself from falling into the water, edged closer to the raft on the left wing of the Gummi Ship. His right hand was still extended and Moana's left arms was just about the same. He was about a foot away from the water when his fingers made contact with Moana's and his right foot went first onto the raft followed by his left. Sora felt his head jerk and his voice sigh with relief once he had pulled himself into the canoe. After placing his right hand on his heart, his left hand gestured a waving signal for Donald and Goofy to pull over. As Donald stepped out of the cockpit, Goofy who stood behind, asked him.

"What about the ship?"

"We'll have her tow it in," Donald replied. "Maybe we can fix it on the shore."

Goofy, in a rare moment of pessimism, could only fill his soul with dread.

"I hope the tools they've got will suffice."

Donald, with his arms stretched out to support his balance, successfully joined Sora on the boat. Goofy, thinking fast, found a 20 yard line of rope in the cockpit's storage container located under the floor with a grappling hook used to pull loads like a helicopter carrying objects and persons from a net or to be used for the purpose of having the Gummi ship towed by another ship for repair or rescue services. The latter reason was used in this event, allowing Goofy to hold the rope in both hands, swing it around three times above his hat and making sure that the hook would not bludgeon his head, threw it toward and Sora caught the hook in the nick of time. Observing the hook with careful eyes, he was unsure as to where he could put it.

"Where should I attach it?" he asked Moana.

"Hook it onto the mast," she instructed.

"No!" cried Donald. "Put it onto the sides! The mast will snap!"

"Maybe the duck is right," said Moana. "Given the weight of your ship against this wood, the mast may break."

Sora gave into Donald's idea by placing the hook onto the supports of the right blade of the canoe while Goofy held the other end under the console of the rocket. Moana, convinced that her small boat could pull the rock all the way back to the island, sat down on the stern and used the oar in both hands to push her way back to the island as hard as she could…but this could only result in the Gummi ship moving by about an inch.

And that was when the waves from the tide coming in helped to speed up the process. They bumped against the underbelly of the Gummi ship, pushing it into the raft. Moana, Sora, Donald and Pua held on tight as they slowly floated all the way back to shore. The rocking of the water, nearly threw Pua overboard and Moana had to hold her precious pig close to her heart to prevent the water from taking him away, which would drown the both of them. Donald clung to Sora's right leg, while he himself held onto the mast and Goofy had his gloved hands holding onto the console of the control panel. The waves continued to push the crafts until the water began to subside and before either of them knew it, the Gummi ship had been beached while the canoe remained in the water.

The last person Moana wanted to see was her father, but it was her grandmother standing by the bushes at the very moment she carried Pua out of the canoe. Old age had taken it's tool on her once healthy body, and now she had to rely on a wooden cane, or walking stick, made from the bark of a coconut tree to balance her weakening legs.

"I thought I would find you here, Moana. But whatever just happened, I would blame it on the pig."

Moana seemed worried.

"Are you going to tell Father and Mother about this?"

"I can handle my son pretty well by not telling him anything," Tala smiled. "And it seems I was right about the fact that there are other tribes out there."

She said this when her attention turned to Sora and his compadres. Hearing this, Sora, corrected him as Goofy jumped out of the Gummi ship.

"Oh, we're not from another tribe, my lady, we're from the future."

Tala's reply was pretty similar to her granddaughter's

"Well, that explains the odd garments."

But Moana's focus had turned to the mountain far before her.

"Maybe now is the time I placed my stone up on the mountain."

Tala looked up at the mountain as well over her right shoulder and her face turned back to Moana with low eyelids and a scrunched frown before it went back to her casual smile at the pace of a fox.

"All right," she chuckled, penetrating her cane three feet into the sand. "Just make sure you hurry on back once you've placed that stone up there."

A curious Sora wanted to see for himself how the acts of heritage in the world worked, ignoring Tala walking her way into the water. When she was up to her ankles in light blue water, a family of five black manta rays circled by her. They seemed to be friendly with Tala, for she sported a tattoo of a manta that spanned her shoulder blades and was directly under the back of her throat. Tala herself choose this tattoo for a special reason that she did not wish to disclose with her family until the time was right…and it seemed that the time was drawing near.

As she smoothed her hands against the manta's wings. Moana faced her body to the direction of the mountain and turned back again counterclockwise to face her grandmother.

"Why are you not trying to talk me out of it?" she asked, her left fist pushing against her hip.

By now, Tala was surrounded by the manta rays, treating her like some sort of god once they acknowledged that she was the one with the tattoo and brought so much care for all living things even if they did not deserve it.

"You said that is what you wanted," her grandmother replied. "So it is."

And she proceeded to stand up and smooth the gentle fingertips of her right hand against her left upper arm. Locked in a trance, she began her hula routine; somewhat hypnotizing Donald and Goofy.

Moana was about eleven feet away when Sora asked.

"What is your connections with these manta rays?"

"When I die, I will be reincarnated as one of them. I could not have chosen the wrong tattoo for this reason."

Moana returned to her grandmother who was motioning her hands over one another after her arms fluttered in synchronization with the manta's wings. She then proceeded to act a question that she felt would be insulting to her own relative, but did not shy away from saying.

"Why do you act so strange?"

Tala did not open her eyes at the sound of her granddaughter's voice; she remained content, tranquil and at peace with the world around her.

"I am the village's most insane woman; it is my duty, my destiny."

As her arms started to motion and up and down to flow with the water, Sora spoke again.

"If there is something you want to tell Moana, you can tell her right and now."

"Sora is right," Moana explained. "Is there something you wish to say?"

Tala froze.

"There is."

And then she turned her head over her right shoulder to face Moana. Her eyes were wide, her eyebrows rose all the way and her lips had a smile most appropriate for an outcast whose only degrading quality was insanity.

"But there is also something that you should _hear_."

"Hear what?" Moana was left in the dark.

"Even better," her grandmother turned around completely. "I will show you where…and you will see _and_ hear…for yourself."

The quartet followed her up a grassy hill, taking at least twenty-eight minutes for them to reach the top. The entrance was about 30 feet in height and at least 20 vines covered the interior from the vantage point of those who stood before it. It was surrounded by some trees and quite beautiful creepers adorning the rock exterior of the cave. Handing over a torch lit by Donald's mage's staff, Tala told Moana what she and her new friends would expect next.

"You have been instilled with all the stories told to you by our people including mine…but there is one last story that you must need to learn."

Moana peered through the vines with the light of the torch. This area seemed to be a place that was foreign, specifically a part of Motunui that she had never seen before.

"What is this place?"

"If you really thought that our ancestors left the reef, think again."

And the cane in her right hand pulled back the vines to show a completely exposed view of the cave. At the very end of the cave, there seemed to be a faint blue glow.

"And what lies in here…is the answer."

"The answer to what?" asked Sora.

"The question that Moana has been asking herself."

The old woman pointed a shuddering right index finger to Moana's heart.

"Who she is meant to be."

Her face nearly seemed to frighten the poor girl given how everyone else viewed her as a poor elderly woman who lost her mind over the passing of her beloved husband. She handed the torch over to Moana and made one final instruction.

"Go inside, beat the drum and find out."

The words played over and over in her head as Moana entered the cave with Sora following behind her, then Donald, and finally Goofy. Tala sat down as the light of the torch faded from view, waiting to hear from Moana once she had uncovered…the truth.

At the end of the faint blue glow, was a beautiful cave of towering structures, silhouetting a bright blue waterfall at the end. Moana, Sora, Donald and Goofy was amazed to see that the structures were none other than ships, about eleven of them in different sizes with their masts acting like large curtains as the sound of the waterfall echoed away. The giants that stood before the quartet seemed big enough to hold a great deal of stories which is what they had to find out.

Moana smoothed her right hands against a row of fourth white triangular shapes representing flowers. The ship it belonged to was about fifty feet in length with the flowers belonging to the midships section. It sat on almost thirty-five logs, which would be used to help roll it out to sea. Then her attention turned to another boat of with a mast illustrating Maui, holding his fish hook triumphantly in his right hand while his left fist was against his hip. He surrounded by waves, stars and a very beautiful sun. Goofy and Donald took their views on these ships with an appreciative historical note, Sora could only express silent amazement and Moana, her attention turned to a twenty-five-foot wooden raft with a familiar red swirl on the mast and two red leaved vines hanging from it, had to find the drum

The drum, which was made of steel with a pair of wooden drumsticks, was located on the top of the largest raft and appeared to resemble more of a large, wide oval pot with some designs and graphs of fishes on the body. Moana, figuring where it was, cautiously approached it as she repeated her grandmother's words once in her head, then again out loud, to "beat the drum".

Tediously, she picked up the one on the right, then the left one as Goofy, Sora and Donald, following her tracks, watched her create a note with the right drumstick that echoed over the cave, then faded into the darkness. Expecting _something_ to happen, but figuring that one note was not enough, Sora summoned the Kingdom Chain and said to Moana.

"Let me try."

He tapped the teeth of the key on the drum five inches away from where Moana had struck with her stick. Seeing how it only produced the same result, Moana used both of the sticks to create an echo that was even louder, but still, there had to be something more than what was expected.

At last, Goofy displayed a rare moment of intelligence.

"How 'bout we use all our weapons as drumsticks, and then see what happens."

"Whatever you say," said Donald, condescendingly as he was still holding his mage's staff.

The dog and the duck walked over to the drum on Moana's left side and Sora was the first to start with a stronger beat than before, Moana with both sticks, Donald with a hard knock and Goofy slammed his shield into the hole of the drum, creating a reverberation that was louder than the others.

Without warning, the drums seemed to have worked its magic as four torches in a straight line next to the drum had spontaneously combusted along with nine more on the other ships, fully illuminating the cave. The quartet could hear words of Tahitian saying things like "Welcome" and "Explorers" among others. Moana and her new allies turned to the mast and what was illustrated on it brought their visions into a golden age of exploration.


	5. Aloha Explorers, Mahalo Tala

_Across the sea on a bright sunny day with no clouds in the sky, a regatta of fourteen ships, glided over the waves that bumped under the hull. The passengers of these ships did not wear the exact clothing of those seen in recent times, but of something more ancient like leaves. Their leader had muscles gained from constant voyaging, with colorful plants, a headdress made to match the phoenix red of his skirt and his name was Matai Vasa. Through the wind and through rain, through the night and through the setting suns they worked and frolicked about searching for an island that could sustain life. After a possible amount of forty days and forty nights, they found one. It was Motunui and they were the ones who built the houses, created the baskets and sown their own clothes. And later, Matai Vasa was placing his ceremonial necklace on the neck of a familiar looking young man who pushed his large boat off the beach and into the beautiful red, purple and yellow haze of the sunset to find another island._

When Moana and the trio came out of that vision, an epiphany that was as strong as a bolt of lightning came into their heads. Could it be possible that the young man was Moana's father and that Matai Vasa was the grandfather who died before she was born? The fading of the torches seemed to dim that thought, but Moana had learned something else.

"We were voyagers," her strong, quiet voice told the others. "We were voyagers! Explorers! Navigators! Sailors!'

Those four similar words echoed all over the cave and rung into the ears of Grandmother Tala. Moana followed the echoes of her voice all the way out into the cave and sat down next to her grandmother on her right side. The girl had many questions to ask.

"What made us stop? Was that chief I saw my grandfather? Are there any other tribes out there?"

Tala smiled and answered the first two.

"Well, that was indeed my husband, a fine strong man who had better morals than our son…and it is true that there are other tribes waiting to be found…but…"

Her eyes narrowed and her smile frowned, turning into a glare of injustice committed.

"Maui!"

In her mind's eye, she could see the demigod gazing at the green glowing heart with evil, greedy eyes.

"When he took the heart of Te Fiti for his own selfish purposes, darkness fell, Te Kā was born, monsters lurked and boats stopped coming back. In order to protect our people, your father and a reasonable number of the ancient chiefs forbid voyaging…and now, we have forgotten who we used to be…blinded by complacency."

By now, Sora, Donald and Goofy were outside, hearing her story.

"Darkness…has continued to spread into our hearts, chasing the fish away from this place and draining the life from one island after the other."

Sora's eyes widened at the pitch black bloodlines that Tala had led them to down the hill. They looked like black fingers of slime, aiming to consume the island in the shapes of fames. Could it be possible that the Heartless had returned, consuming all of the worlds until there was nothing left? No way. Kingdom Hearts had been closed long ago, no thanks to the power of light, love and friendship.

Moana could also see that the black lines of wickedness had also stained the bushes and the tree barks. The memory of the diseased coconut was starting to inform her that her only home was on the verge of destruction without something to bring balance in the way of nature.

"But," Tala continued, opening her blue and white locket held by a string of white pearls. "One day, someone will have the courage to leave the reef, find Maui and…"

She placed the very object Moana least expected to see the most in the palm of her left hand: the very same oval jade she had found twelve years ago. Sora and his amigos looked over Moana's right shoulder for a closer inspection.

"restore the heart of Te Fiti."

"Where did you find this?"

"I saw you placing it in one of the pots back home for safe keeping on the day you found it," Tala reflected. "I was curious, so when I looked in the pot and saw what it was, I thought that I could be the one to restore the heart. But my age could not take me too far…so now that I have entrusted this in your hands, you are worthy of the strength, stamina and courage to cross the great ocean."

"And us?" Sora placed his right hand on his crown shaped pendant.

"You will help to guide Moana and assist her when she needs you the most."

"Don't you mean act as her bodyguards, escorts, guardians?"

"Exactly," Tala sighed in relief. "That key you hold, is said to lock the hearts of many worlds and to use it to protect the worlds from its enemies."

"You know about the Keyblade?"

Sora had met many people who were already familiar with the Keyblade, but how Tala knew about it was a question that she immediately answered.

"Indeed, I have seen many things that the other villagers have not. That is why I am very much of an outcast from them. I have moved on with my husband's passing long ago."

"And is Moana worthy of finding this…Maui?"

"Indeed. Take a look at the ocean and we shall see if I am correct."

With a second-quick sparkle of white forming the swirl of Te Fiti's heart, a body of water came up high above the level of their heads. Moana, immersed by the memory of her first encounter, remembered how it appeared to be a still wave, which it did and hovered over the four in a friendly way.

"I remember now, but I thought it was a dream."

And that was what she said when it twirled and went back under, creating a geyser that shot twenty feet of water into the air. Moana was still and amazed, her grandmother just smiled with both hands on her cane in front of her, but Goofy, who sensed that some of the water was directly toward them, summoned the shield in his right and used it as an umbrella over himself, Donald and Sora. While the water stained Sora's knees, Moana had found herself soaking wet from the common body of the water spilling onto her. In a second, she was drenched and looking like she had come out of a sun shower.

"You are not worthy," Grandmother Tala muttered in a voice that contrasted with her cheerful exterior.

But Moana just giggled it off and shook her hair wilding, forcing Goofy to use his shield again to prevent the drops from getting onto his supporters. Some of them got onto his hat, but it was not long until three minutes into the night when Tala aimed her cane at a constellation of stars resembling an upside question mark with no dot at the bottom (or in this case top).

"Our ancestors believe that Maui lies there at the bottom of his hook."

Then she lowered the cane, her expression dead serious on the intent of saving her island.

"Follow it and you will find him."

Nevertheless, Moana was pessimistic with her role.

"But how can I? I don't think I can even make it past the reef."

"You made it all the past to help me, Don and Goof," Sora said. "So why shouldn't you. We'll be there to help you every step of the way."

"Actually," Moana's frown turned into a smile. "I think I can convince my father just one more time."

And she shot off like a jack-rabbit to the village. Sora and the two animals were about to leave on careful footsteps when Tala felt a pain in her chest. She sat down on a nearby rock and gazed out at the hook before she began to shudder. Sora noticed this.

"Is there something wrong, madame?"

"I fear that the darkness has taken hold of my heart. It might be killing me. I am not old anymore, but I do need some rest. Will you help me back to my domain?"

Sora, ever the helpful saint, wrapped his right arm around Tala's left and Goofy and Donald supported her right side back to the _maota tofa_.

At the _fale fono,_ Tui and Sina had a formed a meeting with the villagers regarding the mystery of the problems surrounding the lack of fish, whether it be due to tides or the population of fish being shorted, the latter which seemed unlikely. Evidence in the form of a pile of black branches dried, dead coconuts and partially sickened leaves. The villagers were at fever point of hysteria when Moana, ran up the steps into the _fono,_ with an excited pace and speed, shouting the news and rushing into the center of the room, holding the heart of Te Fiti in her right hand.

"We can stop the darkness and save our island in the boats I found in the cavern behind the waterfall!"

The others wondered with expressions of confusion, disbelief and other emotions that did not sound too positive. If she was telling the truth, their entire world was now feeling too big for them to comprehend.

"We can take them to find Maui and make him restore the heart of Te Fiti. Our ancestors were voyager, explorers, navigators, wayfinders, you decide what the name should be. We can do it once we can do it again!"

The villagers and Sina, with their confused, frightened looks, turned to Tui, whose own face was the exact opposite of Moana's.

"That is utter and complete _nonsense!_ Everybody knows that we can only solve our problems here."

"And I want to help our people! You always said we should help our people, so why can't we? We cannot always put complacency before trying something new."

Tui gritted his teeth, muttering.

"I should have burned those damned boats a long time ago."

Unfortunately, Moana heard him.

"But we have to find Maui and restore the heart! I've even found three people from the sky?"

The natives gasped and ooed in mixed emotions of discovery and foreigners within their lands, but at the same time, some saw them as threats, maybe even the ones responsible for their island's dying nature.

"Are they gods?" asked a woman in orange.

"Well they did come from the sky in a pillar of smoke I saw this afternoon," Moana replied.

"That could have been just a meteor," her husband in a red skirt added in skepticism. "I know because I saw it too."

"Me as well!" shouted a burly man in white.

"Maybe if I can show you, I can present to you Sora, Donald Duck, Goofy Goof and they will help us to restore the heart!"

Tui had enough. He was now raising the volume of his voice up to an extremely high decibel.

"THERE IS NO HEART! THIS! IS NOTHING MORE! THAN A PRICELESS GEMSTONE!"

Then in a more indoor voice he concluded.

"Maybe even a jade carving."

Before Moana could let out another argument of defiance, an elderly man in a white skirt that matched the color of his hair came rushing into the _fono_ , delivering his news in Tahitian.

" _Chief Tui, it is your mother. Some strangers came and helped her into the house, but no sooner after that she collapsed. You and your family should check up on her, the doctors are already there._ "

Everybody in the _fale fono_ froze and felt a newfound wave of sympathy wash over their views of the former chieftess who they had recently been seeing as the Polynesian equivalent of a village crazy lady. Now as seemed to them, she was on the brink of her death throes. Moana and Sina's feelings were just about as mutual as Tui: a sense of dread meaning that the worst was yet to come.

Pulling back the curtains of the _maota tofa_ , Moana could see her grandmother lying in a patterned blanket with six rugs underneath, with three dimly lit candles on her right and eight more on her left where Sora, Donald and Goofy were, worried for her as were the young medicine man and his female assistant on the right. Both were locked in hushed whispers that Moana could not hear. Even with ten additional candles on the left side wall, the room was not too bright, but it was enough for them to see a sorry sight that within the next few minutes…she was dying.

Moana and her parents rushed over, noticing Sora, Donald and Goofy. Tui was astounded by their odd clothes and intelligent beings in the shape of a dog and a duck and so was Sina. Perhaps Moana had been telling the truth after all about these sky-gods who fell out in a pillar of fire and smoke. Being the chief of high position, Tui walked up to Sora.

"Are you the gods my daughter spoke about?"

"I would not say 'gods'," Sora said, remaining respectful in the presence of a dying woman. "But she says that the darkness in her heart is killing her. It's the truth."

Tui was not sure what to believe, he turned to his medicine man and his assistant, asking them.

"What is wrong with her?'

"The stranger may be correct," said the assistant. "He may be seeing things that we do not…he may be right about the darkness."

As Tui and Sina continued to speak with them, Moana kneeled in front of Tala and so did Sora and his companions. The girl held the old woman's hands in desperation, wishing that she had more time to live and see the result of her great adventure that Tala herself would instill onto her.

"Go…" came the almost inaudible whisper of her grandmother.

But now, Moana could only feel tears in her eyes. She began to sob in despair. It was too soon for her to let go of the one who truly, deeply understood her. Too soon for her to share her stories before she left. Too soon for her to see what the future could bring once she moved on. Too late for her to restore the heart of Te Fiti once she had ascended into the country of the ancestors.

"Grandmother…I won't leave you."

"You must," the old woman's face was just about as sad as hers and her voice was desperate enough to know that her duty and her destiny needed to be fulfilled.

"The ocean chose you for a reason."

Moana's tears began pouring down her cheek as she brought her head closer to Tala's darkness stained heart, her right ear exposed to hear what her grandmother had to say. Tala's face was strong and not ready to pass away before she could give her last words.

"Take the Keyblader and his allies, follow the fish hook and when you find Maui, grab him by his ears and say…'I am Moana Waialiki of Motunui, you will board my boat, sail across the sea and restore the heart of Te Fiti.'"

As she spoke, Tala's frail, shuddering hands released her white and blue locket, placing the heart of Te Fiti inside of it and shutting it very tightly. Moana was touched by this gesture and so was Sora, wiping away a tear from his right eye with the black of his gloved hand from that side. Goofy wanted to spill tears too, but Donald would not let him do so until after they were gone from sight.

"I love you, grandmother."

"And I will always be with you Moana, if not body, then in spirit."

Clutching the locket to her heart, Moana quelled her sobs, confident that whatever her grandmother would say, would be true. All she needed in addition of Sora and his allies, was the spirit of Tala to guide her. Backing slowly away out of the _tofa_ , Moana now knew her path and she had to follow it. Before following her out the door, Sora slowly waved his right-hand goodbye to Tala and she waved in return. Donald and Goofy did the same and stopped just as Sora was out into the open.

With the pendant now hanging around her neck as a reminder of her soon-to-be-deceased grandmother, Moana rushed into the food storage hut, placing three bananas, five stones and some string to light them for a fire into a basket. Sora, Donald and Goofy were already helping her, each with a basket of their own, when she looked to see the desperate figure of Sina standing before her in the doorway. Her face could tell that she was leaving and Moana was not to sure if her mother would be angry at her for leaving and all she said in return was.

"Please don't tell father I'm leaving, I would not want him to lose his temper over me."

"He won't," Sina said, her voice firm and reliable on her daughter.

She sat down in front of Moana and helped her to load four peaches and eleven sticks into a brown bowl, then with a pained expression on her face, she handed a bag to her daughter who smiled so big, it would have gone against her cheeks. After hugging her daughter one last time and watching her leave with three claimed-to-be-gods-from-the-sky, bag of food and supplies in tow, she then rushed over to the chicken coop where Pua was sleeping with Hei-Hei, instructing them to follow Moana and watch over her, uncertain if she could her fate of her only daughter in the hands of the three "gods".

They followed her without anyone else noticing by the time Moana reached the cavern. With Goofy, Donald and Sora having gone back to use the Gummi ship as a lifeboat, Moana was left alone, searching for the one boat that would suit her the best. Remembering the twenty-five-foot boat with the red swirl on its mast, the voices inside her head told her that it would be appropriate to take that one since it seemed to resemble the swirl on the heart of Te Fiti. Unbeknownst to Moana, Pua and Hei-Hei had leaped into the boat just after she finished loading the food into the hull, quietly making themselves comfortable while Moana pulled the ropes in to furl the sail and with strong feet, she was ready to bring her chosen boat back into the water where it rightfully belonged.

The boat moved by an inch, then even further as Moana held up the hull to her breasts with both hands under it and just as the bow settled into the water, she raced alongside the starboard stern and made it off the logs embedded in the sand as the boat, having stayed out of water for only the gods knew how long, was back to serving its old purpose: sailing. It sailed under the waterfall, soaking the boat and getting Moana wet but she did not care, she had more important matters at hand.

She started to look for the three off-worlders. They had already pushed the Gummi ship into the sea from where they had left it and went to look for Moana and it was thankful of Goofy and Donald that Sora's sharp eyes detected a raft on the far-right side nearly half-a-mile away from them. Using a little bit of the engine's remaining power, they sped towards the raft with Goofy preparing the grappling hook to be attached to Moana's raft. And then something else came into Moana's view…

A blue glowing manta ray.

It swooped under the raft, its size as large as the boat itself and that was when Moana realized that her grandmother's last word proved to be true, just as they always were. Sora could see the manta ray as well and was convinced that Moana had a spirit animal like a Chirithy to guide her every step.

"Which way?" he asked her once they reached Moana's boat.

Moana looked at the manta ray that was her grandmother. She was heading north, in the very direction of Maui's fish hook, represented by the stars.

"North. Towards that fish hook."

That being said, Goofy swung the grappling hook three times above his head and Moana placed it onto the right skid on the starboard side, Moana unfurled the sail. Then, jumping over one large wave after the other, Moana, Sora, Donald and Goofy set off into the calm, starry night.


	6. The Chieftess and the Stowaways

By sunrise, Moana, Sora, Donald and Goofy had made their way to the very parts of the Pacific where the sea floor was deep, seven hundred miles north of Motunui. She had her hair wrapped in a bun, just like the way her grandmother had thought her, and even though she passed away the previous night, her thoughts were pushed aside to focus on the matter at hand of finding Maui and she did so by practicing her words from the first moment she woke up to a brand new sun.

"I am Moana Waialiki of Motunui. You will board my boat, sail across the sea and restore the heart of Te Fiti."

By now she had repeated the exact same words at least forty-four times over. Sora was more interested in learning more about his new companion that he had to protect in order to save this world from darkness, as per a Keyblader's credo and force of habit. Looking over from the bowsprit of the Gummi ship, he asked.

"If I'm going to travel with you, Moana, can I at least know more about you first?"

Moana began her story, putting her hands at rest. Sure enough she was explaining her love for the ocean, how she was chosen, the duties she had to perform and just when she was about to mention that one interesting bit about a pillar of smoke falling from the sky, there came a thump from the interior of the hull. Curious, Moana opened it up and looked in…

To her surprise the head of a familiar white pig with black spotted ears popped out of the hull with a banana peel in his mouth, he gulped the peel down his throat and pulled the rest of his body out from the hull, walking to meet his mistress. He followed by a much thinner figure, the wide eyed rooster with a colorful body and a path of arrogance that led to stupidity. Moana herself could only identity the two animals as...

"Pua?! Hei-Hei!?"

The pig snorted a cheerful "in person" in reply and nodded his head, but the rooster could only take one look at the vast body of water and crow in fear as though he were screaming, "WE ARE LOST!"

Goofy, Donald and Sora blocked their ears with their palms in a grimaced expression, but Hei-Hei's crowing, which spanned over a mile radius, was starting to penetrate the barriers of their hands…and that was when Moana used her right index finger and thumb to hover over Hei-Hei's beak and snap it shut. She looked to Pua for help with eyes of desperation, but there was little he could do besides suppressing his rooster friend's fears. She too had to quell the rooster until he had established that as a consequence of being Moana's watchdog, he had to go with her to the ocean.

"Can you help me find a tiny rope I can use?"

The three off-worlders, who had removed their hands from their ears, heard the chieftess as well.

"I'll help!" shouted Donald, raising his right hand.

He looked into the storage container of the Gummi ship, hoping to find a rope. He rummaged through a can of beef jerky, some letters from Daisy, a box of wrenches and tool (which would provide some help to repair the rocket once the reached land) and finally, some small pieces of rope that Chip and Dale often used for rescue missions, among other purposes for repairing the Gummi ship themselves.

Donald took out the rope, holding it above his head in his left hand.

"Found it!" he called and urged Sora and Goofy to push the Gummi ship closer to them by rowing with their hands.

"It's okay, Hei-Hei," Moana soothed the panicking rooster. "The ocean is a friend of mine. It has nice, safe water and it will not hurt you at all."

And by the time Sora and Goofy had rowed the Gummi ship to Moana's boat, wrists exhausted notwithstanding, Hei-Hei had already calmed down and Donald hopped down from the bowsprit to give Moana the rope.

"Thank you, but he's already fine. But I would still like the rope just in case."

This saved Donald from fussing over doing an action that seemed like it had been all done in vain.

When it seemed like Hei-Hei was intent on walking his way back home to the island, Pua's mouth grabbed his tail and pulled him back, knowing that such effort would be futile. Moana kept a close eye on the two of them, putting them back into the hold where Hei-Hei just paced back and forth in proper military fashion as Pua watched him for another fifty minutes until he got tired.

The handling of the sails became difficult for Moana against a teasing wind which sometimes blew the boat backwards by five feet before going forwards again. The waves began to turn so rough that it bounced and rolled the animals in the hold which nearly submitted them to seasickness. Sora, Donald and Goofy could only feel the bumps underneath them, expressing a relapse in stability as Sora recalled his days of sailing from Destiny Islands to the mainland in rowboats, his head going back to the year he, Riku and Kairi wanted to explore other worlds in the open sea, but alas, life had other plans for him.

"Man, and I thought sailing on a raft when I wanted to leave the islands was no joke. Why did we have to fall into a world with ancient ships?"

Ocean voyaging in 1200 was not exactly a vacation cruise, it would not be for another 800 years until such ships would be perfected to meet the standards of modern society, and here they were in a modern rocket ship that was meant for space travel, not for maritime purposes.

Sora lamented his reminisces into the night, when Moana, still concentrating on her rehearsed speech, tried to keep the boat on course towards the fish hook of stars, which was visible to the north as it always was. Pua and Hei-Hei were still sliding back and forth from the waves, wishing it would stop. Donald and Goofy, trying their best not to regurgitate, remained in opposite seats to balance the boat. Sora, opening the cockpit windshield, decided to join her on the boat…

…and that was when a storm rolled in, with clouds of dark grey and a flash of lightning, possibly Mother Nature's way of getting Moana to her destination much quicker. The rain followed as well, pouring heavy droplets of water, followed by another crash of thunder and the waves became violent.

A twenty-foot wall of water scooped up the boat and with Sora's right arm holding onto Moana, it capsized upon being consumed by the wave. The Gummi ship followed as well and Donald rushed to close the cockpit and it did so until eight gallons of water came into his open mouth of fear. Goofy hid under the control panel, waiting for the end to come.

Moana and Sora grabbed onto the starboard wing and Pua and Hei-Hei clutched to the overturned bottom, with the rooster digging his sharp feet into the wood and Pua held onto his tail. The experience between the two animals was painful but it was worth it. The two humans on the wing from two different worlds faced in opposite directions, expressing a fear that their reckless actions had only resulted in a suitable punishment: death.

"Don't let go, Sora!"

"I'll never let go, Moana! I'll never let go…"

And they were swallowed into the water, neither of them willing to let go.


	7. Maui

She was awakened by a sudden splash of water that came to her on a surface that was hot and…sandy. Her face was buried in the sand along with the entire front of her body. Pua and Hei-Hei's heads were hidden under wooden bowls, wondering where they were. Sora was lying on his back, imagining nothing but his younger years on Destiny Island with the typical sounds of birds and waves crashing tingling in his ears, the heat of the sun bearing down on his closed eye lids. Donald looked like a dead duck with the way his arms appeared to have flailed and his tail was straight up to the sky. Goofy was resting against a large boulder, his head leaning against his right shoulder and his legs were in an arched position by fifteen to twenty five inches high.

"Am I home?"

His mind was expecting Kairi to wake him up, but it was his willpower that allowed him to wake up in the first second his upper body began to lift himself up along with the opening of his eyes to see that while the beach and the ocean seemed the same, the surrounding territory was unfamiliar. He was further disappointed by this realization when he saw Moana storming up to the beach and shouting to no one in particular other than thin air.

"What was that for?! When I asked you to help me, I did not mean for you to wreck my boat on a desert island! How would you feel if one day man decided to poison you on the very day I needed your help the most?! HOW WOULD YOU FEEL THEN?!"

She calmed herself once she saw Pua and Hei-Hei with their heads underneath the bowls. As per force of habit, she went over to her two animal friends as Goofy and Donald helped themselves up. But when she came over to the large thirty-foot rock of white granite stone, what she saw made her eyes go wide with amazement.

There were at least six fish hooks drawn with bodies of tally marks, a total of 800, maybe even more. It gave her a hint and she was beginning to regret her harmful words to the ocean that actually helped her along the way. Seeing Sora rocking his head to the left with a small yawn, she asked.

"Do you think Maui is here?"

"Maybe," replied Sora once he saw the fish hooks. "If those marks of any indication."

Moana kneeled down to remove the bowls from Hei-Hei and Pua's heads, but her ears caught the attention of three thumping footsteps, aided by the shadow of a hunchback with his right arm over his head. She immediately figured who it was and her mind supported the initial fear that Maui did not take too kindly to strangers.

"He is here."

Moana's voice was quiet and sufficient enough to prevent her words from breaching the demigod's ears. Scooping the pig and the rooster into her arms, she and Sora hid behind the upturned hull of the boat, lying on its right side. Donald followed them, but Goofy was curious, though smart enough to whisper.

"Fellers, why are we hiding?"

"I don't think Maui likes strangers," Moana replied. "Now keep your mouth shut until I am able to tame him."

Finding the oar conveniently lying there with the blade facing upwards towards the rocks, Moana placed Pua and Hei-Hei on the ground and took the oar in her right hand, intent on using it as a weapon to tame the superior demigod and before she could even take action or even rehearse her words, there was a cry of:

"A boat! I have found a boat!"

Moana stared at the person holding the raft high above his head in his left hand. It was a man, muscular, brown-tanned skin, coal black curly hair and beady little pupils to match those brown irises. Around his neck, was necklace of ten different sets of teeth: A great white shark's tooth, an alligator tooth, the husk of a baby walrus, the front sabre tooth of a lion, the left molar of a tiger, the right incisor of an owl, the left wisdom tooth of a panther, the right central incisor of a brown bear, the left lateral incisor of a grey wolf and a denticle from an octopus. The only thing that concealed his modesty was a row of green ivy, pink leaves, green palm leaves, brown leaves, one yellow leaf and three more teeth belonging to an iguana, a rodent and a barracuda, held onto by three strings of brown rope.

The most interesting details were his black tattoos, covering a major part of his body. On his left ab was a four-inch version of himself holding up the sky, on his right was another four inch version of himself pulling on the sun with a rope attached to his fish hook over a crowd of people, his abdomen was embedded with another four inch version of himself holding the fish hook in his right hand under an angry feminine glare with long wavy hair and hands that looked clawed and underneath the figure were flamed waves centering around his belly button. His right ankle bore the shapes of arched windows while his left had spirals resembling nautilus shells. With waves representing rib cages over the exact location of said bones, his hips had squiggly lines surrounded by a border of smaller ones. His right elbow featured a seven inch version of himself in a black circle while a smaller picture of himself was seen pulling what looked like a kite or glider against a strong gale. Waves appeared on his wrists and on his left wrist were three lives of waves above rows of thin-outlined squares. A palm tree was represented on his left upper arm and underneath it were two other portraits; one of himself with his fish hook fighting against a bat-demon, the other showing a circular variation of himself facing a round creature with sharp teeth. His collar bone was laced with four rows of triangles, black ones facing downward.

To Sora, Donald and Goofy, this man was a living work of art.

"The gods have given a boat…"

He looked down at his unexpected guests, dropping his dramatic tone.

"…along with two humans, a duck, an odd-looking dog, a pig and a rooster."

He placed the boat down.

"It has been almost a millennium since I have received guests."

Moana positioned the end of the oar in the sand and spoke formally with her left fist against her hip. Sora stood tall and taciturn.

"Maui, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, I am Moana Waialiki—"

" _Hero_ of men…and women. It should be 'Maui, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, hero of men and women'. You may resume."

Moana was stunned by this interruption and Sora wanted nothing more than credibility if he was going to assist her, so he decided to wait until Moana cleared her throat and began again.

"Thank you. Anyways, Maui, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, hero of men and women, I am Moana Waialiki of Motunui—"

"And I am Sora of Destiny. You will board our boat, sail across the great ocean and restore the heart of Te Fiti."

Moana just stared at Sora, who shrugged his arms at how good he was at memorizing her speech.

"It takes a lot of listening to hear what you said yesterday over and over again, so I thought I could give you all the help you needed."

Maui, the demigod in question, just cocked his head to the right by five degrees and his face told the others that it was not a sign of acceptance. It was a sign of reluctance.

"It sounds to me as if you don't like me. I have been stuck here for a thousand years because of what I did to steal that thing."

"Out of pure greed and avarice?" asked Moana in an upset tone.

"I have kept myself busy from time to time. A demigod's mind is much stronger than a mortal's, that's why I haven't lost my mind over the lack of food or fresh water. Not that I needed to drink out of the ocean or anything. But the reason I stole it was because I thought it would make a perfect gift for mortals like yourselves: to have the ability to create life. I am immortal, it means you never die, and my physical age is what most mortals see me as."

His face was glued with a smirk and his hormones turned to seductive, peering over Moana.

"Strong, handsome and protector to all people regardless of sex, race or religion."

"That sounds very universal of you," Moana conjured up a friendly smile.

With his eyes at half-mast, a smug leer and a gesture of putting Moana and Sora under his left arm, he said.

"Well, what can I say except…"

His feet began to accelerate, pushing the two mortals into a small valley of rocks into a cave. Sora and Moana barely had time to administer this fact until Maui, twenty feet away from them in the opening, spoke the last words of "you're welcome!" and his hands sealed the cave shut with a large boulder used as a door. Moana, out of fear and in quick haste rushed to the boulder but it was too late for to even have the strength of pushing it back. Sora, knowing it was hopeless, leaned his back against the right side of the cave wall, his right hand covering his eyes in shame as the chieftess-to-be continued to pound on the door.

"Oh, you evil, vile son of a—"

"Please don't say it," Sora muttered, cutting her off before she could sprout the word "bitch". "I've already had enough swearing to last me a lifetime."

And he did get a lot of it during the Second Keyblade War, the big, bloody battle that finally ended Master Xehanort's ambitions of reshaping the universe in his image for good. Moana calmed her body and turned counterclockwise to face Sora, who removed his right hand from his eyes. His face was a mug of light sadness.

"And how do you expect us to get out of here?"

"I can try exploding the boulder with a fire spell, but in case you end up getting hurt, I think it would be best if you went behind me."

And so she did. Her hands were clutching to Sora's shoulders and her eyes were closed as she pressed the left side of her face against his hood. Sora held the Keyblade out in front of him as far as his eyes could go and whispered.

"Fireaga."

A tiny flame peeked out of the teeth of the Keyblade, growing within five seconds to turn into twenty-inch-long fireball, which shot out of the Key like a cannon and made contact with the boulder. The ground rumbled as fifteen pieces of stone, slabs and a heavy cloud of dust caught the attention of Maui, who was already on Moana's boat with the intention of cooking Goofy, Donald, Pua and Hei-Hei for food and had turned back in time to witness the explosion. Sora and Moana were still positioned like statues with the exception that Sora had his eyes closed to block out the dust and Moana was now clutching onto the hood, squeezing her eyes shut until they could go no further.

"I could witness something spectacular as that again and again," Maui congratulated before turning his tattooed back to them. "I hope you will enjoy the island!"

And with his right hand using the rope to rotate the sail by thirteen degrees, they were off with the Gummi ship still attached to the rope. But Moana, who had now opened her eyes, ran hurriedly to the water.

"Wait! We have to restore the heart together!"

Thus she finished as she made her way into the water and Sora followed after her. Seeing her struggle to swim after them at a speed of 0.5 miles per hour, Sora would have used his handy-dandy Keyblade Glider to scoop her up and fly over to the boat, if it hadn't been for the ocean, who formed a five foot mount up to Moana's shoulders and stood there, perfectly motionless for a minute. Sora, with no time to spare at this chance jumped into the water with her and it too gripped him in a slightly taller mount. There was little time for them to prepare to hold their breaths as a current dragged them under the water, spinning them around at a slow pace but everything around them seemed to be going fast.

Meanwhile on the boat after providing the animals with some berries, Maui, smug and confident with the continuation of his heroic deeds, was surprised at the sight of the two humans shooting upwards into the air as the water around them evaporated upon touching the wooden surface. The demigod's mouth was agape and his right eyebrow was raised in puzzlement over how such a feat by a mortal could be achieved.

"I did not see that coming."

While Sora made sure that his naturally spikey hair was still just the way it was, Moana, her hair still soaked from the ride, turned clockwise to face her false hope of an idol. She was determined to restore peace, no matter what.

"I am Moana Waialiki of Motunui. This is my canoe and you _will_ journey with me-"

Without so much as an effort, Maui proceeded to pick up Moana, intent on throwing her into the water. But no sooner had he lifted her about fifteen feet off the canoe when the right hand of Sora's swift reflexes caught her left ankle and the two began to tug for a duo of seconds until it was Maui who gained the upper hand and Sora released Moana from his grip, confident that the ocean would put her back.

"It would be wise if she came with us," Sora sneered, crossing his arms.

A small, animated tattoo found in Maui's left ab seemed to agree with him. It also crossed its arms in an exact imitation of Sora's.

"Don't bother about it," Maui explained. "We should just get going."

"To Te Fiti?" Sora's eyes widened with hope along with his smile.

"No, to freedom."

And that was when Moana appeared on the bowsprit, followed by large goblets of water that fell back into the ocean. Even though she had been soaked for the third time, the chieftess was undaunted yet deterred by the demigod's coarse mannerisms.

"I see you have returned," she said unenthusiastically, looking bored to go with the voice.

"Yes," Moana flipped her hair before presenting him with the heart. "And you _will_ redeem yourself by restoring the heart and prevent the darkness from consuming my island into devastation."

Maui looked at the heart in Moana's right hand, held by her index and thumb fingers. His decision was made.

"That thing is bad luck."

His left hand reached for it, but Moana held it back as far as she could go.

"Then consider doing it yourself, I am leaving."

He held up his arms and dived face first off the starboard side of the canoe. His stamina and strength which physically left him stuck at this young, muscular age did not require him to breath, but there were time where Maui did not know his own strength based on memory and if he was aware, it would be nothing more than an insult, like when just now, the water engulfed him into a bubble, pulling under the canoe to the port side and throwing him onto the wooden surface.

"How dare you!"

But all he received in return was a jet of water, about 50 gallons at least, being squirted at him.

That was enough to make Moana laugh after all the hard convincing she had to put up with. Sora, Goofy and Donald tried not break any breaths of laughter by simply holding them back with their hands. After settling her laughter down, Moana looked at the heart and questioned the demigod.

"Are you afraid of this?"

Maui shook his head.

"No."

But the resilient, miniature tattoo of himself was in a state of weakness when he chattered his teeth at the very sight of it. Maui had to agree with his moral subconscious.

"Don't you dare even try to bring that in front of me. That heart is no more than a mere curse. When I took it, I was dammed from the sky and I lost my hook as punishment. So get it away from me, or so help the gods that I make another attempt to retreat again."

Moana, her eyes at half-mast and her smile on the vapid verge of a grotesque kiss, held the heart further to Maui by three inches.

"Really?" she teased.

"To think," Donald said to his comrades. "A great demigod afraid of a powerful jade."

"Even Hercules wouldn't be so timid over that," Goofy whispered in a rare moment of intelligence.

"As a demigod of the wind and sea I will smite you into oblivion!"

"Go ahead if you may," Sora called from the bowsprit. "But once the world dies into darkness, do not even think about crying to us."

"I just so happened to find out for myself that the heart does not give you power at all. It traces the person holding it brings death to that unfortunate soul."

"And what sort of wicked demons would be after this?" Moana switched the heart into her left hand out of pure childishness.

"Plenty who do not know what it does. If I were you, child, I would hide it before the enemies of Te Fiti find out that you are in its possession."

"No, we are going straight to Te Fiti so we can restore it to her. _Mahalo_ _ame_ _he mea ʻole_."

Maui, understanding it as "thank you and you are welcome" could only agree in his head that he would do it for the sake of redeeming his past sins. Now if he could only get his fish hook back as well…


	8. Attack of the Kakamora

The temperature began to dip and grey clouds of fog rolled in, directly on the water. Hei-Hei sensed danger and so did Pua before he heard the sound of something whooshing that came to the two friends at an alarming pace. Before the rooster could do anything, the dwarf pig grabbed the rooster's tailfeathers with his mouth and pulled him back. What stood there three feet away from Hei-Hei in a 33-degree angle was an arrow, with a front of three white sharp spikes under the larger knife that could have been made from the fang of a great white shark.

Maui picked up the end of the arrow in his left hand, carefully studying the details. It took him a second to realize what type of person would use these arrows.

"Kakamora."

"What are they?" asked Moana.

"Is it some type of Heartless?" Sora interjected.

"Murderous, miniature, brigands."

Maui's voice was deep, deadly serious and full of wisdom. His head slowly turned twenty degrees right to Moana's left and spoke to her ominously.

"Can you guess what they are here for?"

Moana nodded timidly.

"The heart."

Then Maui's voice went quiet.

"Exactly."

The fog was about fifty feet tall with white shades turning from pink in the middle to grey-blue in the bottom. It seemed to be a large mass of clouds combined together to form a smokescreen that spanned over eighteen miles of ocean and if any drops were to make contact with the smoke, the absorption would turn them into rainclouds. But this was unlikely possible if it was that type of smoke, as silhouetted shapes of three leviathans came into view. The shapes were about thirty feet tall, resembling islands or masks of Hawaiian gods until they came into visibility. They were indeed tall, but had now turned into an unusual type of ship (by 1200 AD standards): large rafts made of imperial proportions made of stone and yellow bamboo sticks. Its crew and passengers were nowhere to be seen in plain slight…unless if one were to take into account of the coconuts sitting there with a sharp eye to detail.

A trio of figures stood on the bowsprit and they were indeed coconuts…with purple skinned arms and legs wrapped by leaves for armbands and shoes. The eyes of the coconuts varied surrounded by a peeled layer to represent the face: one on the right had big eyes, the one on the left had holes that were hollow and sinister and the one in front had small, beady eyes that was separated from each other by ten inches. Moana smiled at the seemingly innocent creatures.

"They look so…adorable."

But her words proved her wrong, for the leader and his associate on the left drew red lines representing angered eyebrows with their left index fingers and his associate on the right did the same with his right hand in a white color. Then came the mouths, drawing teeth of white, frightening shapes of various positions alongside three red lines on each cheek. Their heads were donned by different hats: the leader with the peeled body of a puffer fish holding a wooden axe with a sharp corn yellow tooth, the one on the right bearing horns held by yellow string with two weapons; a yellow knife in his right hand, in his left a white toothed axe with four holes in the blade and the one on the left had the purple shell of a carrier snail while his right hand had a spear from the left front tooth of a tiger shark. It seemed to Moana as of that very second, that the paint and the weapons could only spell war.

As Moana's smile dropped, Sora, Donald and Goofy could see from the drifting Gummi ship that the three ships, held together by strong ropes and wooden poles locked together with refuse and flotsam, were coming into full view with its towering fifty-foot height…following the music of drums.

The Kakamora, as Maui had called them, were indeed a four-foot and one-hundred-and-twenty centimeters race with a reputation for cannibalism from the Soloman Islands. They gathered in large armies, a total of 150 to be exact, creating chaos and bloodshed and had a peculiar way of communicating. They lived in the trees and caves of Melanesia and were known by humans as simply "dwarf people". Seemingly timid and shy, the loss of the heart of Te Fiti had provoked them to turn aggressive and now, hoping they could either restore themselves or use it to enhance themselves into superior beings.

The chief of the Kakamora wore the mouth of a teenaged bala shark and the skin of lobster legs embedded on the head with a pair of horns, the left one stained with blood and the right one drawn with purple designs of the Kakamora's tribal patterns. His right hand was armed with a chocolate brown wooden bark of sharp teeth that seemed to function as both a sword and a spear. He aimed it at the direction downwards towards the raft and the unfamiliar looking vessel. It not take long enough for Moana to realize that he was aiming for the heart of Te Fiti. Panic began to settle into her mind and her heart began to pound faster than the beating drums.

"Sora! Ocean! Help us!"

From the cockpit of the Gummi ship, Sora, Donald and Goofy summoned their weapons and a kerfuffle of unintelligent cries from the Kakamora came into their ears. Before they could take action, all three felt a sudden jerk from Maui holding up the rope in his right hand to accelerate the boat at top speed. The Kakamora, with their superiorly larger vessels followed after them when the chief slammed the end of his spear down and five members of his tribe ran in a five-foot barrel used to propel the ship. Another quintet held by black strings bounced on the drum, bringing a louder volume to the music of war.

Moana looked back at the three in the Gummi ship, still armed at the confident suggestion that they could attack. Looking at the trio of ships captained by the Kakamora, should make out the 150 little creatures jumping up and down, shouting in unintelligent tongues of "WE WANT THE HEART!" She had heard stories of Maui's bravery that contrasted with his initial behavior, like transforming into animals for example. She shouted to the demigod with fast thinking.

"Can't you shapeshift to get us out of here?!"

"I would if I had my hook! Without it, I only have my stamina and agility, not my powers."

She looked up at the sight of a white spear held by a half-mile length of brown zooming downwards onto the Gummi ship, followed by two more heading on opposite sides of the canoe. Then came a fourth onto the mast pole, signifying that they were about to be pulled in. Sora and his comrades swung their weapons at the rope, hoping to cut them off while Pua and Hei-Hei tried to chew the ropes off the boat with their teeth.

The Kakamora, six strong in total, pulled their ropes back against the force of the wind blowing the canoe's mast. It pulled the stern down and Moana nearly fell off when the bow rose, holding onto the ropes as Hei-Hei and Pua rolled into the hull. Maui was able to get the first rope off and she was now struggling to pulled off the rope attached to the mast. But the Kakamora had already unfurled their own sails, the main one depicting a crude drawing of a black head with a face of red and dark eyes, white eyebrows and teeth with two spears underneath the face crossing each other, and the one on the left bore the end of a bone wrapped in five lines of red lace.

Moana could see the ropes extending, splitting the two coconut tree laden ships apart, a smaller one on the right side, a medium sized ship on the left side. It was clear that they were intending to circle around the canoe and trap it in a deadly collision. They blew the pink conch shell with two wooden poles against a white puffy cushion and the Kakamora came in groups of eight on each rope. When they came to the Gummi ship, Maui had already gotten the rope attached to the stern off and Moana had no luck in moving the hook off the mast by one little inch.

Sora, his Keyblade swinging left and right at a baseball pitcher's pace, was exasperated by the growing numbers that came out of sight as they were thrown into the water.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph! They're like coconut versions of the Heartless!"

As Goofy and Donald tried to avoid hitting each other with the staff and shield, it was then that Moana placed her right foot on the mast for support and pushed it off. Relived and surprised at how strong she was, she placed her left hand on the mast, smiling to Maui.

"I can't believe I just did that!"

"Look out!"

That was all Maui said before he saw a Kakamora with a crown of baby peaches attempt to run his tiny sword through her back by jumping from the rope attached to the bowsprit. He delivered a quick right cross to the creature, pushing it a yard into the air and straight into the water, where it drowned and his fresh corpse fell to the bottom. Three more in crowns of red and green pepper came down upon his head, and he and to fight them off for as long as possible to keep them from getting the heart, now safely in Moana's necklace.

As he pulled off the last one, he did not realize that the one he had shaken off of his right ankle had safely landed on the right side ship, now to the point of completely trapping the canoe and the rocket. Sora had gotten the Kakamora's rope removed from the rear of the Gummi ship's tail and soon he began to feel the ship itself rotate. Maui had used his own weight to jump on the bowsprit of the canoe, turning it in a 120 degree angle to escape the trap. It looked as if they would make a head-on collision with the main ship, Maui made another right turn that was sharp, heading to a clearing on the right side of the Kakamora ship out into the reaches of freedom.

But the Kakamora had other ideas, they held out shooters made from brown bamboo sticks and what came out of them were fluffy pink tail darts, known for tranquilizing victims into a sleep long enough for them to cut a human or animal's chest open and pull out his or her own heart and feast on it. Sora jumped his way onto the canoe, using _reflega_ to dodge the darts, some of them falling onto the ship. Moana hid behind the mast and Maui felt a sharp pain in his back that reduced him to lying on his abdomen. Given that he was a demigod, the effects of tranquilizer only sedated his joints, but not his head, his willpower strong enough to resist a small fraction of the effects.

"Really? A dart on my spine?"

"Well thank the gods it wasn't your ass!" shouted Sora, putting his fists on his hips.

They made it to the clearing away from the ships, but they still kept firing and Sora was certain of finding a perfect way to end the battle: by wrapping the ships around, bringing them close to each other and crashing in the process. He threw his Keyblade into the air, where it somersaulted for three seconds until it materialized into his Keyblade Glider. Jumping five feet onto the glider, he went in search of a rope. He found the one connected to the main mast, grabbed it with his open free right hand, the rope snapped out of its roots and to Sora's surprise it was long enough to wrap around the ships at least three times. He did just that and with the strength of the ropes pulling him in, he rushed back to the canoe just as the Kakamora ships came into each other with a crash.

Moana was inspecting Maui's tranquilized injury just as Sora dematerialized the glider and fell into the Gummi rocket. The two made an exchange of smiles and went back to focusing their current objectives.

"Congratulations on being a courageous warrior, but I will not take the heart back."

Moana, her feelings towards Maui's words now escalating to negativity even in his current condition but still keeping her mind in check, asked.

"What do you mean?"

"In order to get to Te Fiti, you will have to go through a sea of troubles."

"Like the Heartless?" Sora called from the Gummi ship, even though there were very little signs of their return.

"I am not sure of any Heartless," said Maui earnestly. "But I hope you are prepared to face the lava goddess Te Kā."

If Sora could defeat a senile old man who wanted reshape the worlds in his image, he could take on an equally power goddess of fire as well.

"I will," he fluttered his eyes.

Then Maui looked up at Moana.

"What about you? Have you ever defeated a lava monster?"

"No, but have you?"

Moana, her eyes at half-mast and hands behind her back with a cheeky smile across her lips, thought that Maui looked like innocent infant the way his right cheek was pressed against the boards. Maui, his eyes also at half-mast, albeit in that of anger with his lips in the opposite direction, thought that Moana looked like a she-demon with a perverse urge to make the lives of demigods miserable. The fact that he had proven himself vulnerable to the Kakamora's darts made him realize that he was still stuck to the mission and besides, even if he wanted to, he needed his hook back.

"I submit, but first we must get my hook back," he said at last.

"Good," Moana's smile turned into a genuine one. "Because if you do, then you'll be a hero. A true hero. Everyone's hero."

Maui could almost hear the voices in his head all the way into the night saying "Maui…you are greatest demigod in the world…" imagining one of them belonging to Moana's which he would receive at the end of the journey. Sora, Donald and Goofy had already gone to sleep in the chairs of the ship and Moana was trying her best to be a wayfinder, rising her right hand against the night sky, just like when she saw Matai Vasa do it in her vision of the past. Measuring the stars seemed easy, but only if one were to do it if one's fingers was in the correct position while the hand was held up. If the current was warm, Moana would be going the right way, but now it seemed to be cold. Even after Maui had urinated some leftover water from that morning back into the ocean, she was still determined to face all sorts of disgust, illnesses and many plagues to overcome the odds and believe in herself if she was to get to Te Fiti and make her parents proud enough to rediscover the islands beyond Motunui.


	9. The Lair of Tamatoa

The clouds above grew into an overcast white then grey, shielding away every ounce of blue that was large into smaller spots. The time was around 7:30 in the morning and the seven travelers were just about waking up to a sky of blue, white and dark grey mixing into a perfect watercolor scenery with no sun in sight until it came out of the utmost darkness, reflecting the hidden nature of their current destination.

"Looks like we are in for some weather."

Almost after he said this, Goofy's right hand materialized his signature shield and he immediately placed it above his hat, fearful of the raindrops that would patter onto his head. It was fortunate that there weren't any, because from Donald and Sora's perspective, storms in this world passed quickly.

Moana, however was still asleep. Underneath her eyelids, her vision had turned to the sight of her home.

 _There was a bump that brought her mind back into consciousness and her eyes opened at the rays of sunlight pouring into her irises, her hair shining with light until it could have bleached from black to light, into a blonde color not seen until generations later. The sky was much, much blue then when she had last seen it, as if she had not seen so much blue in years, even though some shades of white were painting the blue with blank streaks and sailed on into the endless horizon. One long look at the sun and she would be blinded by its rays, preventing her from seeing what she would have seen next._

 _It was a small beach with some black rocks on the surface. She stood up wondering if this was the place for Maui's fish hook to be. Excited and not caring if anyone else was behind her, Moana ran five steps up the beach, stopping with her right hand on a thin, barnacle-coated palm tree at the sight…_

… _of Motunui in its unspoiled, pristine nature…_

… _but not for long…_

 _When Moana's emotions went into shock, it was emphasized by the tree she was touching turning into blackness and it crawled from the roots upwards toward the leaves, turning into particles of dust that blew away into the wind and any remnants of the tree solidified into coal and fell into blocks that littered the earth where the tree once stood._

 _And a second later, Moana could have heard her father's voice, along with her mother's booming like a spirit of the mountain. As the dust of darkness littered her hair, she could see the struggling to hold on, as it was the end for them…_

 _The whole island and it's civilians were covered by the darkness, turning them into skeletons that disintegrated and immediately blew into the wind without so much as a happy note coming from the whistling that blew across the sea…_

 _Moana was all alone._

But it was not long until she heard another voice that woke her up. It was Sora calling her name.

"Were you calling me?" Moana asked, standing up with her heart pounding from the traumatizing dream.

"Yes. I wanted to let you know that…we're here."

In front of the travelers about a mile before them was a tall island. Its mountain stood at least a hundred feet high into the sky, with a small hill on the right with trees and bushes. Flat edges of rock scoured those beaches, while the right side of the mountain was almost flat going all the way into the ocean. The sun touched the peak with a monarch-esque display of magnificence and its rays shimmered down on the green flora of the island.

"Are you certain that your hook is there?" Moana asked Maui once they had reached a barrier of pentagon rock formations.

"If anyone has my hook, it might as well be Tamatoa."

"Who?" asked Donald, looking displeased with his hands on his hips. "Is Tamatoa?"

"You'll know him when you see him," Maui smiled devilishly, his demigod-enhanced ears understanding Donald's quacky speech. "He is a scavenger who collects stuff to make him look beautiful…not to mention awesome. I already told Moana about him while you were sleeping."

The bowsprit of the canoe made contact with rock, generating a small bump that Moana felt in her dream and it slowed to a stop altogether upon the bow being ten inches away from the wall. She skipped over to the rocks with the rope in her left hand and moored it carefully to the first rock that was a step further away from where she was standing.

"Does he live up there?"

She asked this once she took a closer inspection of the tall mountain before her. A seagull flying into the sun and then away from it towards the mountain going over it proving to her that it looked dangerous.

"Actually, he lives _under_ the mountain. It serves as the entrance to Lalotai."

That was what Maui said before he placed his right hand on the nearest rock, followed by his left foot for support. Memories of her grandmother's stories floated back to Moana when the name came swirling into her ears, followed by the mental sound of an alarm going off. The alarm sounded more like a drum, beating foreboding notes that accumulated with an emotion of fear penetrating her mind, making her feel like a typical hapless female.

"Lalotai? The realm of monsters and the _dead?!_ "

Moana was not expecting to visit any of her deceased relatives that would most likely hinder her quest to restore the heart, sticking to the mission was the best way of making things better. Maui was already three feet above her, already knowing that he was intent on getting the hook back himself. Sora, Donald and Goofy were already preparing to climb all the way up, using Goofy to support the human and the duck. Moana turned counterclockwise back to the boat and faced it pet pig.

"Pua, keep an eye on the boat and watch over Hei-Hei."

Pua snorted a reply that seemed to have meant "Yes".

Then Moana turned to the mountain, placed her left foot on the nearest rock to support her and started climbing.

A red-bellied robin fellow away from the muscular Maui and his large hands that could have crushed the poor fellow if he did not fly out of the way. Once he had reached the peak where the robin once stood, he turned clockwise and sat down (even demigods needed some form of rest), smiling at the boat before he discovered that Pua and Hei-Hei were the only occupants. His head turned to the left by five degrees, not noticing Moana and the travelers three making their way up until his right ear heard a grunt. The grunt, which came from Moana puling herself up onto the next ledge, brought his attention to finally acknowledging their presence.

 _Those strangers are fine, but that girl is as stubborn as a boar._

But his thoughts drove him to curiosity and he accepted the situation like a true, mature demigod that he was.

"So what is it that you actually do?" he finally said. "Stay on the island where you came from?"

Moana looked back down at him as the three continued on their climb.

"I am the daughter of a chief. I take many responsibilities like dance lessons and helping the people."

"And because of that, your people decided to send you on a dangerous quest?"

"My people did not send me," Moana replied as she was halfway up the mountain. "The ocean did."

"That does make sense," Maui said lackadaisically. "But you can't sail, as true wayfinders stay up all night in order to get where they want to be."

"Then I consider this arrival to be a stroke of luck. The ocean me for a reason and this could be it."

"And if the ocean chose you," inquired Maui as they neared the top. "Why did it not take the heart of Te Fiti back to her?"

Moana looked at her pendant with her right hand just five inches under it. Her thoughts went to the power of the ocean, questioning what made the vast body of water bring the heart to her in the first place all those years ago. Perhaps it was her heart of strong light that attracted the heart and the ocean in the first place, perhaps it was her grandmother's knowledge of the past instilled upon her that had a wisdom that the ocean had not seen for a millennium. She looked back down at Maui and replied.

"That's a very question."

"Some question," Maui scoffed. "I think the ocean only relies on humans who are truly worthy, like you because you are the chosen one."

Those two words of great expectations reached Moana's words, forcing her to stop in her tracks by the time her head and shoulders had reached the top. Sora was already there with his animal allies on opposite sides, admiring the view. He held out his right hand, hoping to help her up, but she placed her hands on the surface and pushed the rest of her body upwards.

"Is he bothering you?"

"Not really."

Going past Sora, Moana was also enamored by the view of the world from a high vantage point. Aside from a ground of sand, barriers of stone marble and scattered pebbles that did not seem to bother her feet, she walked slowly to the other side as Sora looked on. He too was entranced by scenery, with nothing out ahead of them but the ocean herself. The tiniest of gales whipped around their hair and almost stung their eyes peering into the distance where the dark clouds faded into blue. All was silent except for the breezing wind…and Maui's unneeded, but curious reply of…

"What are you waiting for…besides admiring the view?"

Moana turned back in a clockwise direction

"Well I do not see an entrance."

"Because it only comes after a mortal is sacrificed."

Moana's eyes widened in fear until that very moment when Maui laughed heartily.

"I'm just joking!" he shouted. "I swear to the gods above you can be so serious sometimes!"

He huffed a large amount of his breath into his supernaturally incredible lungs and puffed a large lump of breath that created a dust storm and he spun all around, blowing the sand that faded all the way into the water. As the clouds closed in, Sora, Donald and Goofy covered their eyes with their arms while Moana held her breath and when the dust had finally settled into nonexistence, she saw that she was standing at the jaw of a face with no pupils in its eyes and teeth bared to represent a face of hunger and gluttony.

Before either of them knew it, Maui began to shout " _Anex! Anex!_ " as he jumped on the nose he stood on, twiddling his fingers, then he slapped his left hand onto his right elbow and jumped twenty feet into the air, bringing his fists and the rest of his body down to earth, slamming them on the nose. Slowly with a suitable rumble, the mouth began to open and the three watched from the left side, Moana and Maui began drifting apart until the mouth stopped, it's bottom teeth ten feet apart from the top row and she looked down at the path to the underworld.

It was dark with only a purple light emitting an indigo hue at the bottom. The length of the pit seemed to be as tall as the mountain itself. Moana inched away from the sight of it while Sora, Donald and Goofy craned their heads down in wonder of the exact length of the pit. Maui quelled their worries.

"Do not worry, it is a lot farther down than it appears to be."

Yelling excitedly, he formed a cannonball position and when gravity kicked in, his body fell into the darkness of the pit. Moana and the trio could still see his silhouette against the purple light as he shouted "I AM STILL FALLING!" for no apparent reason other than a pointlessly obvious statement.

Clutching her left hand to the shell of her necklace, Moana began to fear for his life no matter how immortal he claimed to be, but it was the sound of a splash that broke the tension and she sighed with relief. The others, who were still watching, mentally thought it best to go first. Sora crouched all the way back, sprang his knees and launched himself five feet into the air, spread-eagled until his weight dragged him down. Five seconds later, Donald followed, flapping his wings in vain as he screamed all the way down and it was Goofy, his limbs spread out like a flying squirrel immediately after who made his way down with his well-known holler. Watching Goofy's voice fading away, Moana whispered to herself.

"You can do this."

Without another second to lose, she walked three steps and her right foot gave way along with the rest of her body. Midway to the purple light, she could hear the mouth sliding itself shut. It seemed to Moana that a spirit was in control of the entrance and had a mind of its own. How they would come back out was a question to be saved for later.

The purple light had turned out to be a body of water that was as deep as the mountain pit. It was beautiful with circulating lines of foam and bubbles passing by. Moana could see Maui ahead of her and the three travelers and even though he was a demigod, Maui held his breath as he saw the light getting brighter and brighter until his body leaving water told him that he had entered an upside down ocean suspended over a jungle of dry land, an aquatic kingdom completely deprived of water.

Sora saw Maui grabbing a long green vine and spun around with it, leaping up and twirling ten feet down onto the ground in a perfect aerodynamic landing. With Donald and Goofy holding onto each other's ankles, they repeated the same tactic, landing behind Maui in unique poses: Sora with his right hand on the blue solid ground, Donald with legs spread apart and hands on the floor and Goofy with his legs also spread apart but with his nose to floor and arms crossed to his chest indicating he was upside down.

"A perfect landing!" the demigod clapped twice.

The miniature version of Maui had drawn a scoreboard with Maui on the top left and Moana on the right. There had been little room for Sora, Donald and Goofy, so the tattoo gave the three a silent compliment and with his fish hook, drew a single tally for both his master and Moana. Maui just scoffed at the scored point.

"She is not even here. No mortal can jump into the realm of monsters."

That was until Sora saw her falling straight toward them. He held up his arms, shouting to her.

"I'll catch you!"

It was fortunate that Moana had landed in Sora's arms with the back of her head resting in his left hand while his right held her by her backside. Her heart was pounding and her face was frozen in a wide-eyed, teeth-bearing expression that simulated the kind of face she could make after waking up from the middle of a nightmare that had come true.

"What a rush!" was all she had to exclaim.

Sora lowered the chieftess onto her feet and her eyes were now fully aware of the surroundings that came upon her. Blood red rocks of coral formed the ground, molded into the flat surface. Purple plants that looked straight out of the sea. Orange and blue shells glittered like jewels under the sun the aquatic environment was depraved of. The sky was replaced by the sea, where a whale and six families of fishes swam overhead. Maui took the scenery with a casual tolerance and called to the group.

"Okay! Now let's get my hook!"

Moana, Sora, Donald and Goofy, not really belonging in the underworld so to speak, found that gravity was slightly heavier compared to the blue glowing spirits that swooped around the creatures they passed. Their hair and clothes began to drape with more weight and the movement became difficult for all four of them. As it had seemed, the underworld was not a pleasant experience for them, nor for Maui given his past experiences with Tamatoa. Moana, going barefoot, could feel the rocks and coral threatening to penetrate her feet, releasing tiny smidges of blood. Donald who also had his feet exposed, had no problem since webbed feet were flat, but the coral did cause a bit of irritation, forcing him to hop alongside the group.

Three creatures with wings like bats, but upon closer inspection seemed to have eight eyes, brought their attention down on the travelers. Sora, his pupils aiming into their souls, summoned his Kingdom Key Chain and remained on his guard. They came down upon them like birds of prey, and when it seemed like Sora could knock them out of the air, they just simply….flew over them. At the same time, it gave him something of an idea.

"I suggest we find conch shells and split up. Those bats can only spell trouble if they try to eat us."

"Good idea," Moana suggested. "as for the conch shells, where do we start to look?"

Maui eyed a perfectly shaped conch of gold yellow lying three feet away from him on the left.

"Found one."

He picked it up and said, returning to the group.

"As your protector and guide, I should go first and when it is safe, I'll blow the conch."

His fast feet fled to a tall dome coned rock of dark blue and purple that towered above his built body, but undermined by a stalactite where one such bat lay resting. Hearing the sound of a horn that was perfect on the first time it was sounded, the bat, shown to have eight red eyes with black pupils that served a void of death, looked to the rock where the sound had been coming from and jumped down with teeth spitting saliva. It crawled on its wings and legs just like a spider from Hell. Moana, Sora, Goofy and Donald, hiding behind a similar rock they had found while following Maui, cowered in fear. Maui on the other hand, had run away from his hiding spot, further from the group and the monstrous bat that he had to deal with.

It was then that Sora he decided to summon his Keyblade and slay the beast himself. With the creature's focus on the fleeting Maui, Sora's light feet took him to the bat's feet and when he was about five feet away from it, he held the Kingdom Key directly away from his chest and he quietly whispered, "Lightning!"

The bolt of lightning that seemed to generate from his Keyblade looked like a tiny spark which caused no pain to the bat, and this only heightened his anger when Sora saw the bat's hideous face for himself. It's large mouth opened and Sora, remembering his own experience with the three headed dog of Greek mythology, Cerberus, placed the blade of the key in the bat's teeth. It refused to let go and Sora held onto the Keyblade, unwilling to let the monster swallow it, no matter how many times it returned to his hands. This gave Donald enough time to march over to Sora, about five steps behind him and cry "LIGHTNING!" whilst holding the mage's staff in his right hand.

This time, the lightning was larger and it struck the bat for three nanoseconds until he had collapsed with eight patches of first degree burns on both of his wings, legs and forehead. To be exact, two on each wing, one for each leg and two combined together on the forehead. The bat collapsed into a heap and Sora, after removing the blade from the bat's mouth, could only feel the congratulatory kiss of appreciation on his right cheek from Moana. It felt odd and unexpected, even when his right hand smoothed it for a trace of electricity from the lightning.

"Consider it as a token of gratitude for protecting me."

Moana smiled while placing her hands behind her back. Sora turned over his right shoulder and said "Thank you," in return.

Fortunately for them in the distance, there was a thirty-foot-tall cantharis shell. Specifically the home of Tamatoa himself. The quartet peeked inside and there, standing perfectly still on top of a twenty-five-foot pile of Aztec gold, pearls, shells, rib cage, ivory, coins, metals, scrolls, teeth, pebbles, rocks, rings and chalices was the upside-down figure of Maui's fish hook. Its white body reflected the shining materials of the treasure trove that lay under it and it was for the first time in Maui's millennium exile that he had seen the very object that once was lost, but would soon be his again.

"My treasure…" he whispered suddenly.

"Your treasure?" asked Sora, fists to his hips.

"I was referring to my fish hook, in case you did not know. For a thousand years, I have been thinking about keeping my hair soaked, getting my hook and being a hero again. I do not wish to have that dream interfered by four mortals inside a cave of monsters and deceased spirits…except with something…shiny."

And he proved this by placing his hair in a bun, wrapping it in a half-foot long piece of rope from his modesty of green that he often used to keep his perfect hair from battle damage. Before he could find the right shell, Sora, who had a similar idea, opened his right hand and the Keyblade materialized.

"Will this work?"

His eyes of hope went to Maui, praying that he would say yes. The demigod observed the Keyblade for eight seconds and made his reply.

"I think it will."

Sora sucked in a large ounce of breath and released a deep sigh, then turning counterclockwise by fifty degrees to the left, placed his left foot forward, then his right and before he knew it, he was walking his way into the shell against his own will. The closer he was the gold, the more he realized that the silver nature of the blade was contrasting with the hilt, which had an appropriate color for the treasure before him. He stood precariously on tip-toe, trying his best not to disturb the creature until he heard Maui's whispering voice instructing him.

"If he comes to you, keep him talking. He likes to brag about himself."

"Does he often brag about your battles with him?" asked Sora without turning his head back.

"Not since I pulled off one of his legs."

Sora's eyes widened at such a graphic thought. The blood spilling out, the remnants laying there, rotting for who knows how long since that fateful event occurred.

Before he could answer, the ground rumbled and the treasure that he had been standing on began to shake off some gold flake which fell to the floor, bouncing off into the pearls and shells and directly under where the pile had been coming from. Sora's free right hand held on with all his might as the ledge reached a twenty foot vantage point, revealing that the pile was standing on nothing more than a shell.

What he was now standing on belonged to a lobster of purple skin with some brown hairs around the rainbow claws of yellow, red, and blue. True to Maui's word, he was missing his forward left leg, a detriment to his quadrupedal locomotion, with a chin of fourteen barnacles in gold and turquoise eyes that would have put the ocean to shame. The lobster, Tamatoa, laughed as he woke, forcing Sora to jump back down the ground and confront him, Keyblade at the ready. Upon his first sight of Sora, the lobster eyed him delightfully with an enthusiastic tone.

"Well, well, well, what have we here? A human with a new shiny to add to my treasure?"

"Actually," Sora spoke, lowering his guard, "I came to accept a surprise challenge, once you have told me about yourself first, legend of crabs."

Tamatoa was intrigued by the remark; talk first, battle later seemed to correspond as to how hungry his stomach was. He had just eaten a bat about an hour ago and he was willing to tell a human his life story, intent on consuming the unlucky soul once he had reached the climax.

"I will tell you about it, in the form of poem I have memorized all by myself."

Maui and Moana climbed up to a ledge, ready to jump onto the shell as Tamatoa began.

" _Tamatoa has not always been this glamourous._

 _I was a drab little crab once._

 _Now I know I can be happy as a clam_

 _Because I am beautiful._

 _Did your elders say listen to you heart?_

 _Who you are on the inside?_

 _I need three words to tear it apart_

 _They all lied_

 _For I'd rather be shining"_

Thus he spoke as Moana and Maui were about to jump and they did once Tamatoa's right claw picked up Sora by his hood and he whispered to the struggling young man.

"Did I ever tell you that I ate my grandmother for a whole week? It went something like this."

He opened his mouth all the way, his eyes closed to avoid seeing any drop of blood that would have been spilled onto his precious gold, should he not eat Sora whole. But it just seemed to be that way until Maui shouted.

"Let him go, you vacuous crab!"

Tamatoa opened his eyes and looked up. For the first time in years, his old adversary was standing above him…along with some woman that he had never seen before, crossing her arms with a smile of bravery as Maui, eyes closed and right hand pulling the hook out as hard as he could, gave a cry of "I'm back!" and looked down at his miniature self.

"Ready to be a giant hawk?"

The chipper agreement of the small tattoo was enough to make Maui whoop for joy, twirling his hook counterclockwise in front, behind his back and then straight into the pile to complete his transformation.

However, in order for a demigod to transform into the specific form of animal they desired, they must form a picture of the specific animal in their heads very carefully, otherwise the transformation would either be skewed or transformed into an entirely different animal. Maui should have remembered this, but his excitement combined with the duration of his exile was enough to make him forget and in a flash of blue light he found himself floating in the air for two seconds before Moana caught him in her hands. The feel of fins, the timidity and puffiness of his body, could only help him to realize that he had transformed into a roly-poly red drum fish with purple fins. Yelling again, Moana dropped him and almost slid off the shell as he turned into a great white shark. This was followed by an iguana, a moose, a fruit fly, an adult boar and finally he was human again, holding his hook with wide eyes and an upset frown, realizing his errors.

The loquacious crustacean twirled around and took the demigod's misfortune with the glee of a pure sadist.

"It seems you are having trouble with your luck. As if you were not swinging your hook right. Why don't he get a life?"

And he shook Maui off the shell to the floor.

"I have to give the gods credit, Maui. You and I are both works of art, we share each other's stories and I am in desperate need of company, so why don't we put away our differences and start working together as allies for a change?"

Maui, his bun now having gone back to its normal self thanks to the string falling off, could only glare at the crab who took his hook away for a thousand years. He stood up on his right foot and shouted back to him.

"First you take away my hook and you expect me to form an alliance with you?"

"I am a diamond in the rough, a hidden light underneath this heart of darkness. I could use the extra power to overcome our enemies."

"And enemies we will always be."

"But think of what we could do," Tamatoa tried to convince him. "But I guess you do have one good reason my shell is a lot tougher than your flesh and blood. The mortal could send a thousand armies and it still would not bring me down. You can always try you cannot always expect a demigod to beat a crustacean."

Thus he spoke as they slowly approached each other. Moana tried to keep her balance, Donald and Goofy tried not to scream as they watched from the entrance, waiting to see if Sora need help. In fact, Sora was already on his way to help Moana off the shell. He turned counterclockwise to the wall, ran up to the ceiling and flipped upside down onto the shell next to her. The man held onto the young woman by her abdomen, hoping to prevent the both of them from falling off.

As for Maui, he charged at Tamatoa, but his quick pincers caught him by his hair and slammed him to the ground face first.

"Perhaps it would be wise if I removed your aching heart far from the ones who abandoned you."

He said this as his right pincer wiped away his curtain of hair, revealing a tattoo under the back of his neck, yet in-between his scapula, depicting a long-haired woman in a white robe standing before a wilted palm tree, her arms outstretched in front of an infant falling back-first into the waves. Sora and Moana couldn't tell if the woman was trying to save her baby…or worse, throwing it away. Tamatoa's words confirmed their suspicions.

"They did not need you, but _you_ need _me_. They made you feel _unwanted_."

The lobster's right claw picked him up by his hair, bringing him to the level of his gesticulating eyes. But Moana was not willing to let her childhood hero fall victim to a lobster's voice of poisonous morality that would urge him to defeat, destroying his self-esteem. Sora, already having had enough of the crab, steadied his way towards Tamatoa's eyes and placed his Keyblade straight towards his head….

"DEEP FREEZE!"

A group of spiky crystals shot out of the teeth and followed quickly through the air, leaving behind shrapnel of ice and frost. Spinning clockwise, it struck the back of Tamatoa's right eye and in an instant, he was frozen solid in a body of ice blue, his mouth fixed with an open smile of a victory that had all been done in vain.

Maui used his hands to push the pincers away from his hair and landed on the floor on both feet. Sora and Moana, who had jumped to avoid being frozen themselves, were now sliding down the shell and somersaulting the floor, landing on their own feet as well. The Keyblader looked back at the ice-covered lobster and said.

"I think we'd better leave before he breaks free."

"Good idea," Maui was still holding his fish hook, treating it like a prized trophy, ironic considering he helped Sora to fight off Tamatoa to earn it.

"And since I have yet to re-learn my transfiguration skills, I do believe there is another way we can get out of here."

Sora grabbed Goofy, whose right hand held onto Donald's bill and they raced toward a hole which glowed a periwinkle blue and the party of five felt themselves flying upwards out of the water and into the air at an altitude of fifty feet. Gravity kicked in and the five travelers fell all the way down at the very spot where they left the boat.

"Well, I am glad that is finished," Moana said, twisting her hair to expunge the water.

Maui helped himself up and walked over to her.

"I want to thank you for what you did down there, but to be sincere, you could have been killed and I could not have the power to defeat him even without the courage of this spiky-haired guy."

Sora dusted himself off as he heard this. It almost sounded to him like Maui was capable of defeating Tamatoa without his help.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that your efforts would have been in vain. Tamatoa would have killed you too."

Sora crossed his arms, visibly trying to make himself look like an Edwardian snob.

"I have killed many monsters far powerful than Tamatoa, he would have been no match for me."

His eyes were closed and his head was facing thirty degrees to the left, ignoring the demigod.

"Well, the chances of beating Te Kā are 100 to 0. The mission is cursed."

Moana's voice was outraged, but confident.

"This mission is not cursed."

Maui looked at Moana with questionable eyes, but he took the matter straight to heart, relieved that had gotten his fish hook back and without another word, the three humans, the duck, the rooster, the dog and the pig were off to the final leg in their journey: the legendary island of Te Fiti.


	10. The Island of Te Fiti

On their way to what would become the final leg of the journey, Sora, standing on the bow of the Gummi Ship, placed his right fingers to the level of his eyes on his forehead and scanned for any signs of land on the horizon. Because his right foot was advanced on the bowsprit, he felt as though the bow itself was getting so low in the water that the bottom half of the white nose cone was submerged. But of course, it was not. Their surroundings were covered by a blanket of stars after the last glow of the sunset and from Donald's clock, it seemed to be about 8:10 PM. The ocean was as calm as a lily pond and the temperature was forty degrees Fahrenheit.

After that fateful recovery from his unfortunate transformation, Maui and Moana had their hairs tied up in buns. As if the clouds had cast a foreboding mood over Maui's current state of mind, he himself was still feeling a bit down from the battle with that thirty-foot-tall crustacean. His eyes were at half-mast and he was looking out into the night, muttering "We're dead soon" seven times over.

"Can you at least try to act positive?"

Maui tried to find the most accurate picture he could think of in his head and said…

"Giant hawk."

In three flashes of blue light, he and the hook disappeared into the shapes of a pig, an iguana and a fruit fly before he became human again.

"We will be dead soon."

He had muttered this for the 77th time and this only gave Moana's nerves a bit of an annoyance.

"Your turn."

That was all she said as Maui felt his right elbow being poked by something wooden, the oar.

"Why should I? You think taking over control of this raft is going to help us defeat Te Kā?"

The upper half of his body sat up, revealing to Moana the tattoo she had seen before. Sora, having leapt his way to check up on them, saw it as well. It was Moana who asked.

"Where did you get your tattoos?"

"I earn them. They just magically appear out of nowhere, thanks to the gods. They display my history, my great deeds and acts of heroism."

Moana pointed her right hand on the woman in the robe.

"And who is that?"

"Nunya."

"Nunya?"

"A derogatory name I gave to my human mother. A private one, actually, meaning that it is none of your business."

But Sora understood the context of the tattoo and took the information with sorry eyes. His Adam's apple made one, quick lump before he asked.

"Why would your mother do something like that?"

"She wanted a girl…but all she got was a boy…I guess maybe that, I was a bit reckless or something…She threw me into the sea, the gods found me and took pity on my infant self, granting me immortality and the ability to shapeshift by giving me the hook. Then they sent me back to the mortals so I could give them the islands, fire, coconuts and anything they wanted, anything at all…as I told you before, I thought I could give them the heart so that they could have the ability to create life and maybe even the immortality that I had…but I was wrong."

Sora could imagine a similar scenario with his older brother Ventus, who was abducted by Master Xehanort as opposed to being abandoned by their parents. Remembering how his blonde-haired sibling told him about the relentless and rigorous trainings procedure he went through…but that was when he pushed that thought aside by simply shaking his head and putting his focus onto the current matters of Maui as he explained his story. Moana, who was more in focus on the subject, tried to be strong and chose her words carefully.

"Reckless or not, my island is dying and I still need your help. The gods found you for a reason and they brought you to us because they saw someone worthy of being saved. But those gods are not the ones who made you Maui, you did it all yourself"

Maui, now starting to recover from the broken shell of his former self, felt his smaller self-burying his face into his exposed flesh.

"I love you too, little me."

 _Talk about loving yourself._ Sora chuckled mentally, trying not to laugh. The moment felt too serious for such humorous remarks.

Turning counterclockwise, Maui stood up and spoke to Moana, whose eyes were turned to the moon.

"So what are we waiting for? We have an island to restore."

The next morning, Maui and Moana helped each other to navigate the ship with Sora watching them on the boat. By 12:00 it was the miniature Maui who helped him with his transformation by turning into a red-faced beetle and he did the same. All it took was for him to picture it very carefully inside his head and then transform back again before Hei-Hei had a chance to eat him.

"How about we start wave finding, Princess?" he asked once he avoided Hei-Hei's beak. "It's not just sailing when it comes to travelling the ocean."

"Actually," Moana blushed. "I am not an _alii._ I am a _kaikamahine o ke Alii._ "

"The words are similar. But if you wear a dress and have two animals by your side, that makes you a princess."

"Actually, that's more of European thing," Sora said, grinning nervously at the choice of words.

"Where's European?" asked Moana with a cocked right eyebrow.

"Someplace that's far, far away," Sora replied in a grim tone. "You probably won't live to see it."

But the courageous Moana perked a smile to go with her shady eyes of valor.

"Maybe I will someday."

Sora tried not to sound pessimistic as he whispered to himself.

"I hope you do."

For the next half-hour after that lesson, Maui crawled around the boat in the form of a yellow-green iguana, jumped into the sea and jumped over the canoe as a great white shark and when he was in mid-air, became a twenty-foot-tall hawk with brown feathers, black ones on his head where his hair would be and colors of yellow and blue behind the black of his beak. He soared through sixteen sharp rocks, beheaded a small one with his hook, being in human form for four seconds until he assumed the hawk form again and flew back to the boat.

The next day, he leaped off the back of the canoe, rose to twenty feet into the sky and zapped into the form of a _Balaenoptera musculus_ , also known as a blue whale. He thought that a little push was all his new friends needed to get to Te Fiti faster as fell behind the Gummi ship and brought a ten-foot wall of water as a result of splashing back down. It soaked Moana, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Pua and Hei-Hei and they could only laugh along with Maui once he had gotten back to the boat.

By the following day, Te Fiti was not too far ahead as Moana helmed the canoe while Maui stood on the bowsprit as the Polynesian equivalent of a lookout. Hei-Hei and Pua were already inside the hull, resting as did Sora, Donald and Goofy who were relaxing in the Gummi ship, each one wearing a pair of sunglasses which they decided not to show to Moana and Maui, seeing as she had seen enough stuff from the future by now. They had already embedded their skin with sun tan lotion and to them, it felt like a motorboat given the speed of the canoe pulling something as heavy as the Gummi ship. Donald figured that they would be in Te Fiti by now, but Goofy checked the computer and calculated that they would reach the island in about three hours or so…but that might as well could have been just another one of his estimations.

As for Moana, she seemed to be enjoying her freedom like never before, running with the ocean with a demigod, a dwarf boar, a rooster and three visitors from the great beyond around her on a small canoe pulling a rocket ship. The wind was a bit of a breeze while the ocean felt calm and content, her experience of a vacation away from her duties as chieftess-to-be soothing at her mind, telling her that nobody, not even her parents owned her. She was also perfectly capable of tying a knot all the way into the sunset and into the night where she could navigate into the stars by holding her right hand at the correct posture.

But before long, clouds of fog rolled in, convincing the travelers that Te Fiti and her lava guardian were just around the corner. Maui, standing from the top of the mast post, looked down at Moana to make sure that the water was warm enough and wrapped the rope around her right hand, making sure the sail was still in check. Maui jumped down and spoke to her after nearly seven hours of silence from the both of them.

"You know, I have just figured out that the ocean used to love all those times when I pulled up all of those islands. Given how your ancestors would sail her seas from island to island, the water connected them all. If I were the ocean, I would be looking for a curly haired chieftess to start all over again."

Moana smiled, flattered by his words.

"That is the nicest thing you have ever said to me. And yet, you and Sora are both true men of honor and respect to a woman of my position. Although you could have waited until we had reached Te Fiti."

But underneath Maui's smile, was a joy of victory. He had sensed it for himself.

"I already have."

Then suddenly the fog faded out of view and Sora, Goofy and Donald walked their way onto the canoe to see what would be their final destination. Maui held out his right hand and spoke in a dramatic tone.

"Moana of Motunui, you have officially delivered Maui across the great sea to the island of Te Fiti."

And there it was, the mountains and beeches of the legendary island hidden away for a hundred centuries…and its lava guardian. As Moana opened her locket, ready to bring the heart back to where it belonged, there was a primal cry of anger and Maui held the fish hook in his right hand to see colors of yellow and red in the distance. Stretching his head and left and right, he stood on his guard, knowing who it was. Donald and Goofy did the same and Moana held her breath while her pets, still sleeping in the hull were blissfully unaware of the danger ahead. Out from the darkness popped the figure of Te Kā screaming into the night, urging Sora to summon the Kingdom Key and took his battle stance as the canoe went closer and closer…

Sora's sharp eyes took in the front details of the titanic Te Kā. Her eyes and the inside of her mouth were yellow with heat, hair represented by fire and smoke that steamed out of the volcanic hole in her head when enraged as seen in her face of irreversible ire, a slender, almost skeletal body made of hardened magma, hands that turned from red to yellow at the point of her fingertips, feet completely concealed by a dense pyrocumulus cloud that also came around her back and the rest of her body was intricately detailed with red cracks against the black body of rock and whatever he saw on her chest between her buxom was a familiar spiral that had its line going all the way to her heart. Could it be possible that Te Kā was Te Fiti, overcome by the darkness in her heart with a mixed flurry of negative emotions? There was only one way to find out.

He turned to Moana.

"May I see the heart again?"

"So soon?" asked Moana, stumped at this question and not realizing her hands were giving him the heart without hesitation. "We have to get past her first."

Sora's eyes lay on the heart, then at Te Kā's chest, the heart, the demon, the heart again, the demon again as fast as he could before the giant had time to launch a powerful attack upon them. Then in a near instant, the heart began to glow at a fast rate, confirming Sora's suspicions as he looked up at the giant, an epiphany forming in his mind's eye.

"I think I know who this belongs to."

Before his friends, Moana, Maui or the pets could do anything else, Sora's right hand released a tiny ball of light that materialized into his Keyblade Glider, and he shot off into the air without the flames of the engines touching the rear end of the boat. They were carefully over the water and the heat was not too heavy to set off a spark that would engulf the wooden boat and the rope holding the Gummi ship into flames.

The jade heart glowing in Sora's right hand was bright enough to outshine all the lighthouses of the modern world. It attracted the goddess with empowering hints of déjà vu that swarmed over her head and would souse the fire away. When he was at the exact altitude of the leviathan Te Kā's forehead, he took his one shot at consoling her above everything else and with both hands gripping the guard of his Keyblade, let himself go of the fading glider into light and raised his voice as loud as he could.

"WATERZA!"

In five seconds flat, without so much as a roll of thunder or a crash of lightning, a shower of water fell from the clouds without warning. It formed a ring that surrounded Te Kā and at the moment the water made contact with her head, the combined steam doused away the flames and the water solidified her body from head to toe, freezing her in a position that had the face of a scream, a right hand raised upwards and a left hand in a lower blocking position.

This gave Sora what he needed: he extended his right arm all the way forward, careful not to miss. Moana, Maui, Goofy and Donald held their breaths and prayed for victory. Pua and Hei-Hei remained hidden in the hull, waiting for it to be over….and it was.

For when Sora had driven the heart into Te Kā's chest, he was just hanging there, eyes closed, Keyblade gone from sight and the heart still remaining in his right hand was a perfect fit into the exterior of her chest where the heart would be and now there it was, a jade carving stuck to a spirit of earth that would burn him alive if he did not redeem her sooner. He whispered carefully, hoping she would hear him and his words of comfort.

"We have crossed the horizon to find you. We know your name. You are Te Fiti."

He squeezed his eyelids silently begging for mercy, not wanting to let go until he knew for certain that Te Kā was in fact, Te Fiti, disillusioned and transformed into something suitably described as a spirit who had taken the path of hatred and revenge in retaliation for having her heart taken away from her. Fittingly, she might as well have been turned into a Heartless.

 _Crack._

A crack was all it took for Sora's eyes to open, when he felt something lush and green pressing against his palms followed by his left cheek and underneath his eyelids was the spring green glow expanding beyond the heart. When he opened his eyes, he was seeing purple lilies, white daffodils, orange buttercups, yellow begonias, violet carnations and red chrysanthemums. Clovers and leaves of green colored up the now-still black earth and marks of lightning began to glow green as well: one going up her right eye, two others above her nose and a third directly above her mouth. The cracks extended to break away from her feet at the bottom and the sun had come out to reveal her true form.

Moana was hypnotized by the green lady who seemed to resemble a ten years older doppelganger of herself with jade eyes, chlorophyll skin, aloe blood and moss hair with lips of emerald and eyelashes and eyebrows made of palm tree leaves. There was only one name she could think of to prove that Sora was right.

"Te Fiti."

Her voice was shallow and quiet, too quiet for Maui's supernatural ears to hear. Goofy and Donald held hands like a married couple, smiling to ignore the fact at how awkward their position looked. Hei-Hei and Pua watched the clouds leave into the blue sky behind them along with the spring goddess' former identity. With the dark weather cleared from the reflections of her demonic emotions, Te Fiti looked at what had become of her island. It was silver-black and bare, stripped of the flora and fauna that had made it so beautiful. Holding Sora in her right hand and gently placing him down on the barren surface, she dug the hand half-an-inch deeper into the ground and the first thing Sora saw as a result of it was a single blade of grass. The blade was followed by a lily, then a daffodil, ten more blades, two more lilies, a whole army of flowers and then, sprouting upwards at an unnaturally fast rate was a palm tree that had stopped in its mid-age while others went higher and before long, Sora could see the entire island decorated with the former glory of beauty and utopian prosperity. To top it all off, Te Fiti's magic had formed a crown of poppies and poinsettias around her forehead.

Looking about half a mile away from him, Sora saw a huge droplet spilling its contents onto the new earth, revealing to be Moana, Maui, Goofy, Donald, Hei-Hei and Pua. Moana fell first on her feet with Donald and Goofy holding each other on her right side, lying down. Pua and Hei-Hei stood right side up on her left and so did Maui, who complimented the scene around him.

"Looks like we all lived."

Then Moana turned to her savior, then to Sora, and then back again, smiling as she twiddled her fingers.

"Listen. I am sorry about how I behaved earlier towards you and I presume that it is you who should be apologizing as well for your arrogance."

Her voice sounded slow and meek, but it was fit for a chieftess of her position. As Maui nodded in a silent acceptance of her apology, Sora walked over to congratulate them just as Te Fiti craned her head down on the heroes who had proved themselves worthy of returning her heart. Respecting her presence, Moana got down on her knees and clasped her hands to her heart while Sora, Donald and Goofy got down on bended right knee and Maui kowtowed his hands to the grass, squeezing his eyes shut in guilt. Pua and Hei-Hei simply bowed their heads.

Te Fiti's face had a look of curiosity when she saw how awkward Maui's position looked. Then he stood up before his eyes looked up at her disconcerting face.

"Te Fiti! I-"

Before he could persuade the goddess with a suave charm and personality, Maui's face fell and he expressed the truth.

"I am sorry that I stole your heart. I only thought that I could fulfill the wishes of others by using it. But now I guess my time was squandered thanks to getting stuck on that island."

After one second, Te Fiti smiled and nodded her head with her eyes closed. Then remembering the Keyblade that had helped her to remember her true identity, her right hand hovered eight feet above the grass and roots began to pull upwards to her palms. She pulled the roots from the ground and concealed it with her fingers, opening it up eight seconds later to present a Keyblade made of grass, the hilt decorated with hibiscuses, two on the front, two on the back at each end. Sora stared hungrily at the gift and hovered his hands over the reward. He seemed unsure to accept it, but his hands remained there.

"It would be rude to refuse a gift from a goddess," Moana explained.

Sora's blue eyes went to Moana, taking her words for granted and his hands gripped the guard and blade, taking it like he had been knighted as a Keyblade Master almost a decade ago.

"Thank you," he bowed respectfully. "I appreciate your gift."

It was a flash of light behind him followed by the shadow of wings which meant that Maui had transformed into a brown owl, flying above his head and onwards into the distance to who-knows where. Then Te Fiti offered her right hand to Moana and she placed her right foot onto it, ending with her left. The goddess brought Moana up to the level of her eyes and she allowed the girl to give her face a warm and loving hug that expressed a lyrical connection with the one who found her heart and returned it to where it truly, rightfully belonged.

The decaying blackness of Motunui left the plants and grass behind, restoring the infected areas of the island back into its true colors. Flowers nearly turned into ash glowed pink with rejuvenation, leaves were young and green again, fresh health was bestowed upon the purple lilies, trees were saved from being turned into an ashy bark and the blades of grass had turned from black to yellow to the right tone of allo green.

Tui and Sina, waiting patiently for their daughter's safe return, could only pray and care for the flowers as much as they could until that day arrived. When the chief had found out that his wife had risked the only heir to the "throne" by sending her off on that adventurous quest with Sora, Donald, Goofy, Pua and Hei-Hei as watchdogs, he was very upset, especially when Sina told him about the heart of Te Fiti. But needless to say, it took him six hours to administer the fact that what his daughter had been doing for the past four days was an act of valor.

During Moana's search, the advisors of the chief began to study the remaining ships left in the cave for research, wondering how they could be used in the discovery of other tribes and islands given the amount of loads and passengers it could carry. Their calculations would be proven correct in the future once Moana and her family gathered a reasonable amount of food and tools need for the journey.

While observing the pink lotus flower blooming into it's full stage, Sina noticed a small raft in the distance. She gasped putting her right hand to her bottom lip before her husband would notice. Could it be possible that their daughter had returned? Only by a closer observation had to be the indefinite answer. Tui observed her departure and given his heart's desire to follow his wife, he did so, finding his beloved women in an embrace and he wrapped his arms around them with closed eyes and a warm smile. After five seconds, Moana, a smile that seemed to match the exact measurement of her parents, spoke timidly.

"I am sorry for going a long way past the reef. I will never do such a thing again."

"That is all right," Tui chuckled. "I was an old fool. It suits you best to be an explorer. It is your destiny."

The villagers also arrived at the beach once they had noticed that their chieftess had returned, eager to hug and shake her hand at her victorious adventure. Hei-Hei was the first to leave the raft, walking slowly, but the ever faster and energetic Pua rushed past him and leapt into Moana's arms, the dwarf pig proving himself a proud pet for helping his mistress. Hei-Hei, who had grown accustomed to the sea, thought of turning back to the water before a quick development in his brain made him change his mind.

That being settled, Sora, Donald and Goofy detached the rope from the Gummi ship to the raft and floated off, believing that it would best for the people that Moana have all the credit if the villagers did not believe she was assisted by Maui, Pua, Hei-Hei and themselves, but by the time they drifted off into the great horizon, Moana had noticed that the three had left, but she could still see Sora waving his right hand goodbye into the air. She waved back and then instructed the other villagers to bring the old vessels out of the darkness and into a new daylight.

"So where do we go from here?" asked Donald once Motunui was shrinking out of their sight.

Sora, narrowing his eyes to the flat horizon of water, knew that they had to find some sort of land where technology was advanced enough to repair the rocket so they could make their way home, maybe even along the way, explore new worlds that needed their help. All Sora could say for the matter was.

"To wherever the wind will take us…"

When he turned back, he could have sworn to have seen a regatta of twenty ships, led by the large raft captained by Matai Vasa so many years ago. Now it would be captained by his granddaughter Moana, who wore her flower crown with glory and took the honor of festooning her dress with red, yellow, orange, pink and peach leaves along with two furred armbands on her upper right arm and pearls attached to the upper edge of her top. She looked happy at the sail drawn with the depiction of a flotilla of rafts heading from a small island to a much bigger one, the ship she was currently sailing leading the way. As she reached the top of the mast for a higher view of the world beneath her, there was one possibility that she saw a familiar manta ray gliding under the water and a giant brown owl heading upwards into the sun, knowing that it would be Maui and her grandmother leading the islanders to a new home and a new tribe that would be there to greet them peacefully.

It was the happiest day of Moana's life, better than fighting off Kakamora, or infiltrating the liar of Tamatoa or even restoring the heart of Te Fiti, she would never, ever forget her new friends Goofy Goof, Donald Duck, Maui and Sora.


	11. Lilo's Conclusion

"And that's it…"

After two short hours, Lilo had finished the story. Stitch seemed to be interested, Pleakley was on the verge of falling asleep, his one eye at half-mast and chin resting on his right palm and Jumba seemed perplexed by his lack of understanding what life had been like back in the ancient times.

"So what happened after happily ever after?"

Jumba's question was apparent to Lilo that he need an extra sense of understanding.

"I guess you could say that while Moana and Maui did live happily ever after, the point is that they lived."

"Lived for how long?" Pleakley's eye was locked onto Lilo, waking up instantaneously after hearing about the "lived" part.

"Did they at least get married?"

The question uttered by Pleakley was enough to put the girl's mood into something that was not too far from an expected fairy tale ending.

"Moana and Maui," Lilo said strongly. "Decided to live their lives in peace…separately."

Now fully awake with his jaw slowly falling, Pleakley was beginning to assume that what Lilo really said was…"They never saw each other again."

"You mean they never talked or saw each other again?"

Lilo perked her smile like something decent had come out of it.

"I'm sure, they did, but they never got married. I don't think Moana wanted to anyway, or so Sora told me."

That being said, Lilo closed the book and placed her hands on her joints. She took a deep sigh and resumed.

"Consider it as a tip, a word of advice that even if her parents wanted to produce an heir, Moana enjoyed her freedom as she wanted to find other lands."

She sat, smiling a big grin across her face as she stepped onto the lift and it elevated her downstairs. Her face remained in the place of a clever trickster when she met Nani in the living room, sitting on the pink couch.

"I heard you telling a story to the others," she looked up from her _Mana_ magazine. "What was it about?"

"A Polynesian princess who learned that it was best to follow your heart rather than the duties of others."

"And what does your heart tell you?"

"That things will turn out all right in the end. Like with Myrtle and keeping a civil tongue in front of her and all that stuff."

Nani smiled and nodded her head twice. Lilo had taught herself a valuable moral from all that time she read. Then the two sisters sat next to each other on the sofa and reviewed the magazine together. They found it to be very interesting.

When the next day came, she was off to school again. Myrtle and the girls were unusually silent around her for the following week, and when they started causing her trouble again, she simply replied an equally gross remark and continued on her way, making sure that the balance between herself and her classmates remained in check without causing anymore violence.

Neither Stitch nor Lilo ever mentioned to Jumba and Pleakley that Sora had gotten the tip from a Scottish princess named Merida, but that's another story.


End file.
